DETROIT LAKES — WE Fest’s 40th-anniversary celebration kicked off with a full house and the need to find a few aces up its sleeve.
WE Fest producer Matt Mithun believes they had a record number of guests at the Thursday, Aug. 3, concert featuring headliner Morgan Wallen.
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“We don’t have the exact number yet to publish, but I can tell you what it looked like,” he said. “It looked like it was the biggest crowd we’ve had at Soo Pass Ranch.”
Mithun would know. His family has owned the land since the mid-1980s. In the past few years, he went from landowner to producer and now owner of the festival that Detroit Lakes resident Jeffrey Krueger founded in 1983.
Krueger, who is now 71, was at the concert to celebrate the event’s anniversary and noted the crowd was “big” and might be a new record for the event. During his tenure at the head of the festival, he saw right ideas turn left and well-laid plans crumble under the pressure of a quickly growing event.
“Over the years, I learned to always have a plan B, C and D,” he said, and then shared a few issues they faced with weather, artists and planning.
Mithun experienced some bumps in the road this year. He explained they are recognizing where improvements can be made, so they can implement changes in the coming days and years.
For example, many concert-goers found themselves in a traffic jam as cars stretched for miles from the WE Fest campgrounds along County Highway 22 and Highway 59. Even buses transporting WE Festers from Detroit Lakes were taking two hours to go to the concert grounds and return to town around mid-afternoon.
Detroit Lakes Chamber of Commerce Director Carrie Johnston recommended anyone wanting to take the shuttle service arrive earlier than planned. Parking at the Becker County Fairgrounds is free, and the wristbands are $10.
She explained the buses typically leave WE Fest every 10 to 15 minutes, but traffic was a big factor in slowing down the buses.
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Mithun said several factors may have contributed to traffic problems on Thursday night. He explained that campers were still arriving.
The festival is being vigilant with guest safety by checking vehicles for weapons, as well as people.
“We knew it would take a lot of work, and thankfully most were patient,” he said. “We also learned a few things.”
One lesson learned is to have the biggest stars perform on Friday or Saturday when campers are already situated.
He noted Morgan Wallen is on tour, and with limited open dates for festivals, they were happy to welcome him early on in the festival.
Some concertgoers also reported having to wait in line for an excess of two hours to get their wristbands to get in, which meant some didn't make it in until well after Morgan Wallen had already begun singing.
Mithun believes Friday and Saturday's festival will not have the same traffic concerns, as those attending the event will be daily guests looking to park and head to the concert.
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He also addressed concerns some expressed on social media about problems with not having assigned campsites available.
“We have some following up to do,” he said. “We want to discuss what happened.”
“More than anything, we want to thank people for their patience and understanding,” he said. “We work on WE Fest year-round, but things still can catch us off guard. We’re furiously taking notes to improve as we go ahead.”
'As full as I've ever seen it'
WE Fest may well have set an attendance record Thursday, with more than 40,000 people in the concert bowl to see country star Morgan Wallen.
“Historical records are not as accurate as they are today,” said WE Fest General manager Mark Bjerke. With electronic scanning, the 40-year-old country music festival can now see exactly how many people are in the concert bowl, how many vehicles are on the grounds and how many campers have arrived, he said.
Back when the festival used paper tickets and hand stamps, attendance figures were more of a guesstimate, he said.
But the concert bowl, which has a maximum capacity of 50,000, “was as full as I’ve ever seen it,” Bjerke said. “I think we had as many people in the bowl as we’ve ever had — north of 40,000, right about capacity.”
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And since the bowl has been reconfigured to allow for more standing room and fewer lawn chairs up front, that could very well mean it was a record crowd on Thursday night, he said.
That was a bit of a mixed blessing for WE Fest, since the big crowds led to traffic delays, longer-than-desired waits for food and beverages, and some confusion with ticketing and the number of available sites at VIP campgrounds.
“We got a little caught off guard” by (the surging crowds for) Morgan Wallen, who’s very popular right now," Bjerke said.
Way more people than normal showed up on Thursday with campers — which was unusual, he said. Usually, people who plan to camp show up a few days earlier than that, and only a trickle of campers turn up on Thursday, he said.
There are so many campers this year that WE Fest opened up Eagle Campground, which hasn’t been used for years, and is even putting people into overflow camping at Hilltop Campground.
WE Fest has beefed up its security searches, including thorough checks of campers and motor homes, and that slowed down access to the campgrounds and backed up traffic onto County Road 22 and Highway 59 on Thursday.
“That’s what caused the traffic chaos yesterday,” he said Friday morning.
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That shouldn’t be such a problem Friday and Saturday, because most people are already there, and no new campers are being accepted — only those who have reservations, Bjerke said. “Contrary to popular belief, we don’t just keep selling tickets until we get tired of it,” he added.
WE Fest is a three-day festival, which traditionally features its biggest headliners on Friday and Saturday night.
But Morgan Wallen could only appear on Thursday evening, and WE Fest was lucky to get him then, Bjerke said. “Morgan is playing in Edmonton in Canada on Saturday,” Bjerke said. “This was the only day we could get him. He rolled in with half a dozen semi-trucks and half a dozen tour buses.”
The issues with VIP camping were caused in part by the larger, longer camping trailers and motorhomes that have become popular since the VIP Campground was built to provide each campsite a 25-foot by 40-foot space.
“It’s not 30-foot campers anymore,” Bjerke said. “They’re 40 or 45 feet or even longer — there are still electrical (access) sites open at VIP Camping, you just can’t get to them.”
Other concert venues require guests to provide the size of their campers in advance, and WE Fest will look at that in the future, as well as look at reconfiguring the VIP site to better handle larger trailers and motorhomes, Bjerke said.
There may have been a wait involved in buying food and beverages from vendors, but there were no issues with running out of food or water at the festival, Bjerke said, noting that there are a number of 24-hour food vendors in the campgrounds and elsewhere at the Soo Pass Ranch venue.
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The concerts on Thursday were noticeably quieter in the city of Detroit Lakes than in past years, and that’s because WE Fest has added a number of repeaters in the concert bowl, so fans there can feel the experience without so much amplification. “We don’t have to turn it up so loud,” he said.
WE Fest has been making a steady comeback in the past three years, Bjerke said. “We went from 23,000 (attendance) to 27,000 to 40,000-plus this year. It’s our 40th year, we’ve put on 120 concert days.”
And the crowd goes wild
Among Thursday’s performers were Ashland Craft, Bailey Zimmerman, Ernest, Chase Rice, and, of course, headliner Morgan Wallen. Many WE Fest attendees were eager to see the superstar who has topped the charts and made a name for himself in the country music scene.
“I am a huge country fan … I am so excited, and I love We Fest,” attendee Chloe Corbin said.
“I think I’m gonna bawl my eyes out when he (Wallen) plays tonight because he is the best country singer in the world,” Tristana Tatur, another We Fest attendee, said.
“I’ve had Morgan Wallen as my Spotify Top 1 country artist every year for the last three years because all I listen to is country music over the summer,” said superfan Morgan Mauch.
Wallen took the stage at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday night.
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