By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It is clear sailing for Tall Stacks for the next five days.

PHOTO GALLERY

9 photos of preparations

Cincinnati's Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival - the fifth such homage the city has paid to its steamboating past since 1988 - Tuesday weathered what organizers hoped will be its one and only storm, with heavy rain and high winds on the day before the gates opened to the public.

Concessionaires slipped around Bicentennial Commons Tuesday afternoon as they set up their booths, while 10 of the 17 riverboats that will line the banks of the Ohio River bobbed in the choppy water, securely moored along the Serpentine Wall.

Starting this morning, the first wave of a crowd that organizers believe will top 600,000 will begin streaming onto the riverfront for the boat rides, music, food and a party atmosphere steeped in history.

It meant that staff, volunteers, riverboat crews and concessionaires had their hands full Tuesday battling the elements as they made final preparations.

TALL STACKS GUIDE

Planning your visit General information:  • Getting there  • Rules  • Tickets  • Weather forecast Schedules:  • Daily events  • Concerts & theater  • Sawyertown (Kids)  • On the Kentucky side Cincinnati.Com's Tall Stacks section

Inside the tunnel that leads to Sawyer Point, Katie Carroll and Erica Stuchell struggled against fierce wind to tie plastic sheeting around rack after rack of Tall Stacks souvenirs so the merchandise wouldn't be damaged overnight. Carroll and Stuchell work for PSI 20-20 Promotions, the Madisonville company hired by Tall Stacks to make and sell the officials hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts and other souvenirs.

The pair wore garbage bags as makeshift ponchos as they lashed down the merchandise.

"It's hard work, but we have to do it," said Carroll. "We're running out of time. We have to be ready to go in the morning."

As the rain subsided and the winds began to pick up, workers dragged small lemonade stands around the midway, placing them in strategic locations; musicians hauled big bass fiddles and horns on board the ships, and workers from the Verdin bell company set up their mobile foundry where today they will cast an Ohio Bicentennial Bell that will be rung for the first time at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Mike Smith, the executive director of Tall Stacks, said the weather did little to slow down the last-minute preparations because Tall Stacks' production schedule was already two days ahead of the plan.

"We got so much done so fast that we were able to send some people home over the weekend," Smith said.

And, according to the National Weather Service, it shouldn't be much of a hitch throughout the event, which ends Sunday. Friday is the only day with a serious threat of rain.

Some of the most intense Tall Stacks preparations were going on in music classes and auditoriums in several Cincinnati area grade schools and high schools.

During every day of the event, school musical and theatrical groups will perform Tall Stacks-inspired productions in Sawyertown, the children's area at Sawyer Point.

At Clermont Northeastern Middle School, 52 fifth-graders were preparing Tuesday for their Thursday performance of Steamboat in a Cornfield, their musical skit based on a John Hartford children's book about a steamboat that gets stuck in a cornfield after a flood.

"We've been working on it ever since school started," said teacher Bobbi Bower. "The kids are very excited."

At Springdale Elementary School in the Princeton School District, Cincinnati's steamboat heritage has been worked into every part of the curriculum, said music teacher Harry Cordell.

His fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students will put on a "Celebrate Tall Stacks" musical Thursday morning at Sawyertown.

After their performances, the children will be rewarded with a ride on The Colonel, a stern-wheeler from Galveston, Texas.

"We've got about 30 parents who have volunteered to come along,'' said Cordell. "We didn't have any trouble getting volunteers for this show."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com