How will Mancini Bowl’s new seating make MoBand’s concerts more accessible?
MoBand’s project to improve the seating at Graceada Park’s Mancini Bowl — where the community band performs its free summer concerts — is nearing completion.
The bowl’s stadium seating is divided into five sections. The two outside sections are bench seating made of heavy-gauge aluminum, while the center three sections were composed of individual seats.
The bowl once could seat about 1,270 people, but because of vandalism and normal wear and tear, about 270 of the individual seats had been removed over the years, according to the city. That reduced the bowl’s seating to about 1,000.
The project replaced the remaining seating in the three center sections with sturdy aluminum benches. The new layout can accommodate as many as 1,325 people, according to the city.
MoBand has performed a series of six community concerts in June and July for decades at the bowl. The concerts are Thursdays at 8 p.m. This season starts June 8 and runs through July 13.
MoBand director George Gardner said the concerts draw 2,500 to 3,000 people. Besides filling the bowl’s stadium seating, concertgoers sit on blankets spread out on the grass surrounding the bowl. Gardner said the project is important because it makes the concerts more accessible to people who cannot sit on the ground or find it difficult to bring their own chairs.
MoBand is paying for the $150,000 project and working with the city and the College Area Neighborhood Association on the project.
The city is managing the work, and MoBand is using CANA’s agreement with the city that allows it to undertake park improvements. Members of the fraternal organization E Clampus Vitus lent a hand by removing the old seating.
MoBand fronted the cost of the new seating and continues to raise funds to offset the project’s cost.
Gardner said MoBand has raised more than half of what is needed. More information about the project, including how to donate, as well as about MoBand, is available at www.moband.org.
“The support we’ve gotten so far has been very good ...,” Gardner said. “The new seating looks wonderful and makes the bowl look very presentable and ready for use.”
Mancini Bowl is a community treasure and used by many organizations. The events at the bowl include the city’s teen and family movie nights, the Modstock Music Festival, school graduations, the Modesto Fiji Festival, the Cinco de Mayo Block Party, the ACLU Social Justice Block Party and the Alzheimer’s Association’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s.
The bowl exists because of MoBand, whose full name is the Modesto Band of Stanislaus County and which was established in 1919. The Band Mothers Club with help from the Modesto Jaycees launched a fundraising drive in 1947 to build the bowl, according to Bee archives.
The City Council appropriated $9,000 for the project, and more than 200 residents and businesses donated money and $15,000 worth of bricks, steel, cement, lumber, wiring and plumbing for the project, according to Bee archives. The bowl opened in 1949 at a cost of $30,000.
Gardner, who joined MoBand as high school trumpet player in 1965, said MoBand replaced the Mancini Bowl seating about 40 years ago. He has served as MoBand director since 1979.
He said the band draws about 250 musicians ranging in age from the mid-teens to octogenarians. He said about 120 will perform during MoBand’s Mancini Bowl concerts.
Construction to replace the seating started April 3 and took about two weeks, according to Nathan Houx, the city’s parks planning and development manager. Workers completed some minor items last week and still have to do some some minor Americans with Disabilities Act work in the next couple of weeks to complete the project.
