Lakefront Music Fest

The Minnesota Music Note - Ep 45 - Why Lakefront Music Fest Is About So Much More Than Music

4mo ago

Fun facts from the interview

• The festival started as a jazz festival, then switched to rock and country after two years to draw bigger crowds.
• The park holds about 18,000 people each night, and the hill works like a natural amphitheater.
• Every organizer is a Rotary volunteer, with 14 committees, and more than 2,000 people volunteer to make it happen.
• About 40 local nonprofits volunteer at the festival, and the Rotary club gave back about $142,000 in one year.
• The stage arrives on a semi-truck that unfolds into the stage, and setup takes about a week.
• In 2021 it was the first festival to reopen after the pandemic, with more than 10,000 people.
• One headliner's crew traveled with a semi-truck full of whiskey barrels as a marketing stunt.
• One stage manager was allergic to diesel, so the generators had to sit 250 feet from the stage instead of 100.
• Darius Rucker personally thanked every stagehand after the show.
• Foreigner invited a local high school choir onstage to sing two songs with the band.
• Past and booked headliners include Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert, Billy Idol and Keith Urban.
• Recommended the festival's stage crew, its jumbotron video crew, and its longtime talent buyer at Variety Attractions as future guests.