Ask anyone at his company: Sean McCarthy needs his flannel shirt.
The sartorial choice is part work uniform, part personal trademark. McCarthy, owner of McCarthy Tents & Events, dons it in his team photo as well as in his recent headshot for August’s Hoochenanny Whiskey & Music Festival, for which he is the event producer and co-owner.
In fact, before CITY could even begin to interview McCarthy, he asked a colleague to locate a flannel to put on over a T-shirt. And then, crested with green patterns, he explained what makes his company succeed.
“We’ve never not made it,” said McCarthy, 44. “We’ve never been like, ‘I’m sorry, we’re just not going to get this done in time.’ That’s never happened.”
That commitment has paid off. Since he started in the events business 26 years ago — spanning weddings, fests and other events — McCarthy has seen his tents pop up at every major summer fête in the region.
Ordering a drink between bands in Highland Park near the blooms? Watching free live music on Gibbs Street? Enjoying the artisans on the Erie Canal in Fairport? It’s not an exaggeration to say anyone who has attended one of these fests has stood under a McCarthy tent.
“We know what we need to be successful or not successful,” he said. “If we know things are not where they need to be, we kind of help with layouts and drawings, because we just need to go there.”
Jenny LoMaglio, the executive producer of the Rochester Lilac Festival, chalks the success up to efficiency. By now, she said, McCarthy knows how to solve any logistical problem that could arise during the city’s official festival season kickoff.
“It’s almost his own backyard as well,” she said of the fest, which begins May 9 this year. “[McCarthy Tents & Events has] the tools and the knowledge to have our needs taken care of. They really treat us like the crown jewel of this city.”
The prep work and polishing for that care begins when there’s still snow on the ground.
“We’re a little rusty from cleaning chairs and painting equipment and doing all the winter activities,” McCarthy said. “But throughout the progression of the rest of the season, it’s every festival, plus all the [other] events. It’s all unique, depending on what else is happening during those timeframes.”
And none of it can happen without crisp, clean, white tents. The team spends the winter using a 5,000 square-foot wash bay in its Henrietta warehouse to clean and dry thousands of pieces of fabric. (Picture the dry-cleaning conveyor a giant would use.)
That’s in addition to the team’s 22,000 square-foot facility and showroom in Webster. It’s filled with dozens of boxes of event mainstays like drapes, chair cushions, tables and silverware — and spare flannel shirts. The upkeep is endless.
“If you buy 5,000 folding chairs all in boxes of eight, do the math,” McCarthy said. “You have to unload thousands of boxes sometimes for an order, brand them all [and] put stickers on them.”
After a year spent living in San Francisco during his 20s, McCarthy returned to Rochester and began the company in 2007 without even dollies to carry his tents across big fields. In 2022, McCarthy acquired Nolan’s Rental, Inc. and greatly expanded the business.
He said the work has been good throughout New York State and even as far south as Washington, D.C. — McCarthy provided the media tent during President Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, a connection made through a local audio/visual company.
While he used to spend “six or seven days” each summer on the road doing events, McCarthy is more present these days. The larger staff and added resources from the Nolan’s acquisition help.
“All these things happened at once that made us more efficient and made me more available,” he said.
McCarthy has time to try new endeavors, like Hoochenanny, which hits Camp Eastman from Aug. 8-10 and features headliners like Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Dark Star Orchestra. He partnered with Tommy Brunett — who founded the fest two years ago with a mission to “cultivate the uncommon” — to expand its reach.
Brunett said McCarthy knows his chops.
“What’s of the highest importance for us is the hospitality and the experience that people will have, and Sean can do it,” he said. “He’s got the infrastructure. He’s a little crazy like I am, so we get along really well.”
Good news for Brunett, a career musician and industry professional: the pair bonded over music, too.
“Sean’s the kind of guy who will go by himself to a three-day punk rock festival in California,” Brunett said. “That’s why it worked.”
For his part, McCarthy is always in motion. This interview found him roving throughout the warehouse, checking in with workers, cracking jokes and taking a phone call or two. There’s always more to be done, he said, especially right before festival season begins.
Unlike his flannel attire, McCarthy’s entire professional path was not planned, he said. So, he keeps moving.
“It’s not like a chosen career, you know?” he said. “It just happens.”
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
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This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
