This year’s “Big Gig,” a.k.a. Summerfest, the biggest music festival in the US, has upgrades. At a recent ribbon cutting, organizers of the annual Wisconsin festival unveiled the Lakefront Gateway Project. This provides a new North Entrance for festival-goers, and a Community Plaza which features a unique interactive chime and drum garden, near the new turnstiles.
The dynamic deal made last year between American Family Insurance and Milwaukee World Festivals claim that nearly $60 million will be spent on capital improvements through 2020. A new U.S. Cellular Connection Stage is being unveiled this summer; and a reconstructed American Family Insurance Amphitheater is anticipated by 2020. Also a remodeled Miller Lite Oasis and Beer Garden opened in 2018.
American Family Chairman and CEO Jack Salzwedel also announced the creation of Let the Music Play, a grant program for music students in Milwaukee County. This program “inspires and protects dreams,” commented Don Smiley, CEO of Milwaukee World Festivals.
With Summerfest in its 51st year, Smiley, refers to the area as “The Fresh Coast,” designating a new endearing catch phrase for the region, which has long been called “The Third Coast;” the coast he means is Lake Michigan, with Chicago, Illinois, being 90 miles south of Milwaukee. According to Smiley, Summerfest has built a special relationship with The Harbor Commission of The Great Lakes region.
According to sources, during the 2017 festival, nearly 2,100 seasonal employees were hired, and 350 volunteers provided over 3,400 hours of support for festival services. Nearly half of the entertainers involved were both local and volunteer, many winning a spot by way of competitions, bands driven to be supporting acts to bigger industry names.
In 2017 Murfreesboro band The Jewel Machine, signed to Orchard/Sony by Artists In Music before landing on the Prodigee label, performed at Summerfest and later landed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
One way that Summerfest is seeking new fans, “is with partnerships like the one with Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Smiley contends.
Summerfest itself is nearly twice the size of Coachella, and is far different from Tennessee’s Bonnaroo.
Let’s compare: the Bonnaroo website reads that sales rebounded substantially in 2017 to more than 65,000 patrons, and includes camping.
The Coachella page says that their event in 2017 was attended by 250,000 people and grossed $114.6 million.
The Summerfest’s 50th edition presented by American Family Insurance, reported attendance of 831,769, despite heavy rain on opening day in 2017.
Entertainment Director Bob Babisch suggests that because the fest is strictly a summer event in a cold region, the costs are more expensive when purchasing a big name. Babisch said, “There’s a bidding war to get the biggest names,” and “Bands are getting four or five times as much compared to playing markets in the winter, because the festivals have to have content.”
According to jsonline.com, the country’s two top concert promoters—Live Nation and AEG—have invested heavily in festivals. The former has major ownership stakes in Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits and others, while AEG oversees Coachella, Hangout in Alabama and Firefly in Delaware. Compared with the independent Summerfest, the two companies have deeper pockets and connections.
When Coachella compares itself to other large scale events, it does not compare Summerfest’s stunning statistics and low admission costs to theirs. Summerfest relies heavily on the local market and gives away hundreds of thousands of tickets annually to neighboring communities. It does make it also likely the most mammoth event affordable to the masses when compared against the high stakes other fests play into, such as those in markets tapping into Nashville or Los Angeles (although Bonnarroo’s schedule, it is noted, often conflicts with the highly popular CMA Music Festival, held annually in nearby Music City).
Lastly, The Lakefront Gateway Project, on the north end of Summerfest held in Henry Maier Park, serves festers right onto the freeway in accordance to the careful city planning of the corridor, taking cars away from the event and Lake Michigan. It is newly decorated with musical notes in concrete. What song embellishes the new facade? The public domain song, most similar to the Summerfest logo, entitled “Smiles.”
