”We’re packing 10 gallons of stuff into a 5-gallon bucket.“ That’s what one of our fabrication guys had to say about the Drydock container bar when we held our first project meeting before starting construction. In other words, this assignment was going to be a challenge.

Fortunately, tackling challenges and figuring out how to make big ideas into reality is our job every day. Sure, it’s not always on this scale, but we’ve turned shipping containers into bars before. As for how well we did at this challenge…we’ll let our customer Bruce Falcon do the talking.

You’ve heard a little bit from Bruce already if you’ve visited our YouTube channel and seen the Transformation Story about Drydock. For more of his take on the project and how it will help the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival, keep reading under the video link below.

Tell us about yourself and what your role with the Hell’s Half Mile festival is.

My name is Bruce Falcon. I am the treasurer as well as on the board for Hell’s Half Mile.  This is my second year now.  I used to just be a sponsor, but Alan [LaFave, the festival director,] convinced me to come on board as a board member and the treasurer.

So what made you want to be more involved with the festival?

I like what the festival brings to the city, with the independent movies as well as music.  I’ve watched Alan grow it over the years, I came on as a sponsor, and now being a board member and the treasurer, I just think it’s a great event for the city to bring all this independent artwork to the town. 

What are you hoping Drydock’s going to bring to the festival?

Obviously with us being a nonprofit it will help generate some revenue for us to maybe bring more films, more music, expand the whole Hell’s Half Mile event, maybe bring a big-name actor in. And it’s just gonna bring more awareness to all the people that come. We can educate them a little bit on what Hell’s Half Mile Events does for the city.

You were there when Drydock was installed, right?  Can you tell us what that was like?

It was really cool, just to sum it up in simple terms, to see it almost completed at ZENTX facility [and then] have them bring it over on the flatbed and crane it into place. It was nice to see our hard work and our ideas now becoming a reality.

What did you think of Drydock’s appearance and aesthetic?

[We’re] very pleased.  We put a lot of our trust into ZENTX; we gave them an outline of what we were looking for and they went really above and beyond what we could have hoped for with designing everything. We just gave them some guidelines that we wanted and they took those and added their own personal touch and it came out perfect.

What’s your impression been of Drydock’s first couple weeks? 

It’s been overwhelming, actually; all of the responses have been very positive. People like the vibe that it gives out. A lot of people [are] telling their friends to come check it out.  And I just think it’s going to get bigger with each week that goes by.

Alan LaFave talked with us about the Drydock project too. You’ll find his interview here.