Is there a culture clash at Green Music Center?

Drinking and dancing are expected at outdoor, summertime music festivals. Or are they?

Some Green Music Center patrons are sounding a blue note over a recent show they say got out of hand when drunken concertgoers crowded onto the front lawn, blocking views and creating a noisy distraction that ruined the event.

The revelry at a July 12 bluegrass show prompted patron Alex Sleeth to abandon her spot just outside Weill Hall’s removable back doors soon after headliner David Grisman took the stage, she said.

At one point, an inebriated woman dancing in front of Sleeth’s table fell backward onto her, nearly smacking her head on a curb, she said. She hauled the woman to her feet and told her to go home.

“It was horrible,” said Sleeth, a nurse practitioner from Santa Rosa. “I was so excited to have these wonderful seats. But who wants to sit next to a bunch of drunk people dancing?”

Larry Furukawa-Schlereth, the Green Music Center’s co-executive director, said he attended the show, and that the problems were limited to “one or two individuals.”

“I did not perceive our patrons to be raucous,” he said in response to an email, pointing out that 96 percent of patrons who responded to a survey about the show said they were satisfied.

“Different concerts draw different audiences, and our indoor winter concerts are not the same as those we do in the summer when we are able to have both indoor seating as well as outdoor seating which is not as formal,” he said. “The summer allows our guests to enjoy a picnic with family and friends along with great music, and that is part of the experience we offer.”

The criticism comes as the $145 million performance center at Sonoma State University enters its fourth year. The unique venue holds 1,400 people inside and up to 6,000 people when its doors are opened to the terraced lawn area outside.

Indoor performances include classical music and symphony orchestras. The outdoor season, which runs from July 4 to the end of September, features pop music.

That’s when some say two distinct worlds collide, creating discord in the audience. Reports of bad behavior by lawn patrons include chatting on cellphones during performances or people using high-back chairs that obscure views. Some patrons blame student ushers for taking a laid-back approach to people who lack proper lawn etiquette.

Melissa Sanders, spokeswoman for the center, said she’s not aware of any problems this summer that would warrant closing the doors, as some have suggested. Outside patrons are encouraged to spread picnic blankets, eat, drink and enjoy themselves, she said.

A majority of the 2,500 in attendance gave the show high marks in post-concert reviews, although one person was escorted out by security, she said. She didn’t provide details.

“We’re very sorry if it was distracting to some of our patrons, but the vast majority had a great time and they return again and again,” she said.

Sonja Bedford, a retired Santa Rosa teacher who also attended the bluegrass festival, said Green Music Center officials haven’t figured out how to accommodate the largely older audience sitting inside the hall and younger people outside. Bedford said if people on the lawn get too rowdy, event organizers should consider closing the removable doors. She said inconsiderate patrons behind her rear orchestra seats drove her away from the Grisman show, too.

Campus Police Chief Nathan Johnson said he didn’t know of any arrests at the bluegrass fest or a more recent singing performance by actor Kevin Spacey.

Johnson said pop music coupled with outdoor seating lends itself to a more relaxed atmosphere in which people talk and move around.

“It’s just human nature that people in a less formal seating area may be talking more,” he said.

Private security officers screen people at the gate for alcohol and scores of white-shirted ushers remind people to move high-backed chairs to the rear sections, he said.

Sworn campus officers also mingle with the crowds, he said.

All are trained to intervene if problems arise, he said.

“We definitely have our share of security personnel on hand,” he said.

Sanders agreed the outdoor scene is different than an indoor concert. She said some people sitting near the open doors might have been new to the experience.

“We can’t please all the people all the time,” Sanders said.

A supervisor for the ushers, Patrick Maloney, did not return a call seeking comment. The director for pop music programming, Peter Williams, also did not return calls or an email.

Green Music Center patrons who responded to a Press Democrat staff member’s Facebook posting asking for their comments about lawn manners at recent shows mostly wrote it off as a non-issue.

One person said Spacey was “surrounded” by people when he walked out to sing in the lawn area July 18 in what the person described as a “scary” incident. And a few mentioned a crowd of dancers at the bluegrass show.

“Security needs to be more attentive,” Judy Farrell wrote.

Furukawa-Schlereth, the co-executive director, said he had not heard any complaints about the Spacey concert.

A majority of people responding to the Facebook query said they were unfazed by the way people in the audience behaved. Michel Mason Strong said some patrons on July 12 were in the “bluegrass happy zone.”

Jim Corbett, who didn’t attend, said he heard it was “ruffians in the cheap seats, riling up those in the high-price section.”

And Laurie Karle Gibbs asked, “Isn’t that part of the whole concert-going deal?”

“I mean, if I didn’t see this, I would be concerned,” Gibbs wrote. “I guess I’m missing something.”

Sleeth, who paid $25 a ticket to sit with her husband in the first row of tables on the lawn, said she fully expected people to get to their feet as the music moved them.

She just didn’t think they’d be so drunk and start falling all over her. She bolted about 15 minutes into Grisman’s set as the beautiful setting devolved into something more like a bar, she said.

“I said, ‘I can’t take this anymore,’?” Sleeth said. “I’m not going to sit around and wait for these people to start vomiting.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.