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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 3
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
Just as the Austin City Limits Music Festival evolves each year, ACL-themed parties do, too.
Susie and Jeff Turk have been throwing the “Turk ACL ADL” in one form or another since the fest started. (“ADL” stands for “all day long.”) Yet for the past three years, they’ve entertained in a more organized way at their Zilker neighborhood home.
“The first year, we were just a married couple, and it went from 9 in the morning to 11 at night,” Susie Turk says. “Last year, I was nine months pregnant, so we cut it back to 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. This year, with a 10-month old child, it’s noon to 7 p.m.”
“This year, it’s our smaller, kid-friendly version,” Jeff Turk says. “But by the end of the evening, everyone will be on the third-floor deck listening to the concert.”
Two years ago, the Mud Year, guests used the Turk’s house as a clean-up and dry-off station. Last year, as many guests were watching football as heading to and from the fest.
Neighbors, normally vigilant about festival traffic, are more gracious about the party guests.
The Turks home was designed for entertaining. In the past, Susie Turk, who sells software, cooked for two days to prepare, but with a small child, the couple decided to opt for catered barbecue.
While guest lists often ballooned to 200 or 250 — including friends of friends of friends — the Turks expect no more than 50 over the course of the day.
“People use our house to drift back and forth,” Jeff Turk, a furniture maker, says. “It’s never gotten really crazy.
“This is our second year of not doing ACL,” says one guest, Austin Business Journal editor Colin Pope, relaxing over chips, beer and mimosas with fiancee and wedding planner Livia Gross and nine-year-old son Fox Pope. “We still get the vibe without the hassle of going down there. You want to get away, but you want to get a taste of it, too.”
At 2 pm., about 20 guests gathered around a long wooden table, shoes off in deference to Susie’s Korean heritage. Perhaps half were talking bands, but every other topic under the sun seemed fair game.
As rain began to fall lightly, the only rock star at Turk ACL ADL at this gig was tiny frog-adorned DJ RiBbiT.
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