Follow up to the Great Grove Bed Race, part 2

Yesterday we talked about complaints about last weekend's Great Grove Bed Race. More complaints about the Bed Race that have come in from spectators was that they didn't like the emcee Johnny Trabs, the comedian. We actually find him funny, Lili Dones and I "found him" at the Improv and he has been emceeing many local events, including July 4th.

People felt it was too ethnic when he asked, "How many Cubans in the audience?" and "How many Colombians?" We heard this and didn't think much of it, but it bothered people. Many asked why he didn't ask "How many Grovites are here?" Next time, live and learn.

It's been said that the P.R. was great but it was local and not national. But that isn't the case, we made it all over the national news and most of the beds were from groups who were from outside the Grove. There was one from the Keys and one from Broward and others from other areas of Dade County, so people did come from other areas. Ironically, all winners were Grovites. Another interesting fact is that most of the people in attendance were from outside the Grove. Many Grovites were out of town for the holiday weekend.

Now the winners -- people felt that there should be one winner and no categories, but many felt it wasn't fair last year when ladies and older folks had to run against the UM track team. So categories like women's teams and corporate (which is really not so much corporate but it is over 30 and will be renamed next year).

One major black eye was given by the Miami Parking Authority (MPA), who saw the Bed Race as their cue to ticket whomever they could. We bring the people here and they take advantage. One guy wrote a letter to the editor to the Miami Herald about this last week. The MPA needs to back off at events. It's not a good thing and it works against the merchants. We caught them the night before ticketing cars during the Pub Crawl and Gallery Walk. Buzz killers to be sure.

Tomorrow we'll have the good things about the Bed Race.