Extravaganza Planned for Reagan’s Visit

Carrying briefcases and walkie-talkies, a dozen Secret Service agents paced the stage of the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa earlier this week, looking suspiciously at the curtains and peering at the lights.

In the front row, two entertainment producers cooled their heels, waiting to find out how many bands and flag girls and Boy Scouts they should provide.

Outside in the parking lot, event promoter Donald Willet was helping two White House advance men select a landing site for a helicopter.

The Pacific Amphitheatre is perhaps best known for its concerts. Boy George has played here. So have Elton John, Frank Sinatra and the Eurythmics. But Monday at noon, it will take on a different aura as President Reagan, stumping for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ed Zschau, makes this his last campaign stop of the season.

Supporting Zschau

Republican Party leaders are hoping that the election-eve rally will bring Orange County’s nearly 600,000 registered Republicans to the polls, giving Zschau the edge he needs to win statewide over Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston.

Willet, an Irvine political consultant, first heard about the Reagan visit about two weeks ago. Since then, he has been planning an extravaganza.

He has promised to fill all 8,500 orange folding seats at the amphitheater, to pack another 10,000 people on the grassy hill behind them and to bring several thousand more people to an outside parking lot to hear speeches piped over a sound system. Earlier this week, trying to build the crowd for Monday, Willet and Zschau campaign workers began distributing 80,000 free tickets.

Willet talked of constructing a two-tier wooden platform above one section of seats for the press corps--200 or more photographers and reporters. He talked about moving the crowd through metal detectors that will be provided by the Secret Service. And, on a stage that will be trimmed with blue bunting, he promised to squeeze two or three bands, a dozen state and local politicians, Gov. George Deukmejian and, of course, Zschau and the President.

There also will be a dramatic finale, Willet said--”the balloon rise.” When the President finishes speaking, Republican volunteers are to release 20,000 red, white and blue balloons in the middle of the amphitheater. By midweek, Willet had begun recruiting 30 people for the chore. Workers will begin filling balloons with helium at 5 a.m. Monday.

The point of it all, Willet said, is to building excitement--excitement over Zschau’s candidacy.

“You come here and you invoke the fact that the President needs Ed Zschau to be in the Senate,” Willet said. “So far, the race hasn’t been real exciting. Hopefully this will excite people. This gives it that extra push.”

Employees Excited

Already, the amphitheater’s employees were excited. General Manager Steve Redfern said he was honored that his facility had been chosen for the campaign stop. And Redfern’s assistant, Tina Pollini, said she was looking forward to seeing the President.

“Yeah, I’m excited,” Pollini said. “But it’s not Elton John.”

Some of Willet’s colleagues also were getting into the mood.

“This would be a great place for a flag!” exclaimed entertainment producer Michael Nason as he studied the 70-foot-wide stage.

His assistant, Kevin Cartwright, surveyed the grassy area above the rows of metal seats. “We need to make sure the sprinkler system doesn’t come on,” he said.

Nason, an Orange political consultant and producer of “The Hour of Power” television show for the Crystal Cathedral, helped with the 1984 rally at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley that drew 50,000 people and opened Reagan’s presidential reelection campaign. As he had before, Nason was volunteering his time for the Pacific Amphitheatre event and asking each performing group he called to do the same.

For his efforts the last time, Nason said, he received a letter of appreciation from Reagan and “a nice little present,” a set of presidential cuff links.

“And you get your picture taken with the President,” he said. “That’s enough payment for me.”

Willet, who also helped with the Mile Square Park rally, said he was volunteering his time in Costa Mesa, too.

Willet tried to put the excitement of working with major political figures in perspective. “You don’t have the time to be in awe of the person you’re working for,” he said. “You don’t have time to say, ‘Gee, it’s the President of the U.S.’ Basically, all the politicians have the same concern: ‘Where do I sit?’ ‘How do I get from here to there?’ ‘How do I get to the right place at the right time?’ ”

He and Nason recalled that at the Mile Square Park rally in 1984, not everything went precisely as planned. Twenty thousand people had to be turned away, and high winds grounded the closing spectacle--a hot-air balloon that was supposed to carry an American flag.

But that rally still ended dramatically, Nason said.

“The President never has any problem being the grand finale,” he said. “I knew that day that he was going to be elected President. I could feel it in the air.”