April 28, 1974, New York City. It was an unseasonably warm Sunday (as it is today, here). It was warm enough to wear my new Capitol Records 10th Anniversary Beatles T-Shirt to Central Park to see John Lennon and Harry Nilsson talk for about 15 minutes on the main stage to support the March of Dimes Walkathon. 100,000 people were there and it was the shirt that led me directly to John (The pretty full story has been told previously). That was the day I met with John and told him my idea of a Beatles Fan’s Celebration. He got all excited about it and I will never, ever forget his exact words. John said, “I’m all for it. I’m a Beatles Fan, too!” With that one 15 minute meeting, my germ of an idea started to take definite shape. I think he liked the fact that I was a true fan (who also happened to work in a record store) and not some big corporation person. A little more than 4 months later, the first Fest was held at the old Commodore Hotel in NYC and over 8,000 fans were in attendance. John, true to his word, donated a signed guitar of his for the Charity Raffle. He wanted to come down and pick the winner in person, but on that day decided to go out of town. We even had a microphone for him set up in the balcony, with a path in through the kitchen. We didn’t tell a soul about it, but we were ready! I wish he had the chance to see it, but I did get to tell him all about it, in person, a little later that year. The convention was the cover story of Rolling Stone in their 10/24/74 issue, with the heading “Strange Rumblings in Pepperland”. The cover had a Beatles Lunch Box on it and the story was written by Joel Siegel. It has been a truly amazing 35 years and I feel privileged to be able to present the FESTs still in 2009! It is quite clear now that The Beatles music will live forever and the pure joy of The Beatles has been successfully passed