Summerfest sees thinner crowds, slower business
No official comment on numbers; ‘It should be wall to wall people’
After canceling for the first time in its 53-yearhistory, Summerfest has returned, albeit with noticeably thinner crowds, according to several vendors and patrons.
The music festival faced many challenges this year, including a staffing shortage, the introduction of COVID-19 safety protocols (which require showing a recent negative COVID-19 test or a vaccination card) and the loss of multiple headliners.
In February, it was announced the festival would be further delayed to allow for more coronavirus vaccinations, moving from its usual June-July dates to a series of three-day weekends in September.
All the changes appear to be exacerbating a trend of lower attendance that started for the festival in 2018.
‘Sales are down, way smaller crowds’
Summerfest officials declined to provide attendance numbers or comment on attendance at all until after the festival.
However, Deanere Johnson, a Milwaukee native helping run the SkyGlider on the festival ground’s south end, said crowds were significantly thinner than they were in 2019.
“This side should be full,” she said, pointing to the SkyGlider. The return side was almost entirely empty.
“Around this time, it was heavy,” she said of crowds in 2019. “It was a lot more people than it is now.”
Caryl Klug, who has been coming to the festival every year since 1968, also said crowds were much sparser compared to what she has seen in the past.
“The crowds are usually more (full),” she said. “It’s a Saturday; it should be wall to wall people.”
Horacio Lopez said he has been working at the booth for Artesanos Unidos, a vendor that supports Guatemalan artists, for 30 years and he has never seen fewer people.
“It’s been the worst year in sales and attendance in 30 years,” he said. “Sales are down, way smaller crowds. Yesterday, we thought: ‘It’s going to pick up later in the day.’ But no — it never happened.”
Another indicator of low turnout? Ticket prices, which are going for much lower than usual.
Tickets to see Saturday’s headliner, the alternativerock duo Twenty One Pilots who will be performing at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, are starting at just $7 on StubHub resale site, and many are still available. In 2018, tickets for the duo sold out in just 20 minutes when they performed miles away at the Fiserv Forum.
Summerfest had already experienced reduced attendance prior to the pandemic, hosting 718,144 festgoers in 2019, which represented the lowest attendance since 1986.
The music festival is not be alone in decreased attendance.
The Wisconsin State Fair, which wrapped up three weeks ago, saw attendance decline by 25% this year, falling from over one million in 2019 to just over 840,000. Like Summerfest, the fair returned after it was canceled last year and introduced new changes, such as going cashless and changes in operating hours.
“If attendance is a little lower this year because of all the factors involved, so be it,” Summerfest CEO Don Smiley told the Journal Sentinel in an earlier interview.
Business is slow for many vendors
Some festgoers liked the calmer atmosphere. John Vanderhoef, a patron who has been to Summerfest more than a dozen times and said he liked some of the changes, including moving the festival to September when the weather would be cooler. “It’s not hot, it’s comfortable out. I like coming out before it’s crazy,” he said, adding that he expected the smaller crowd to grow later in the evening.
Many vendors, however, were much more anxious about the decreased crowds.
Douglas Fischer, who was working at a booth for No Studios, said although he had never been to Summerfest during the day, crowds seemed light compared to previous years.
“I’ve been volunteering since (open) and there hasn’t been a point of sale yet,” he said at around 1:30 p.m.
Rolinda Wade is a Chicago native. She has been working at the booth in Robby’s Roasted Corn since she moved to Milwaukee 18 years ago. This year, she said she thinks the pandemic is deterring many from coming.
“Some people are still scared,” she said. “I even thought about not coming.”
Getting vaccinated made her feel comfortable enough to come, but business has been scarce. “It’s been slow, but this is our third day.”
Wade also noted that Summerfest’s cash-free policy also affected business. This year was the first time Summerfest has gone cashless to reduce the spread of COVID-19, offering free cash conversion sites.
“It broke down the first day,” she said, pointing to a cash conversion machine just feet away from her.
According to a statement from Milwaukee World Festival, the producers of Summerfest, feedback on the cashless system was positive and they plan to use it in the future.
Johnson said sales were slower and fewer compared to when they were using cash at Irishfest and Mexican Fiesta. “That was heavy,” she said.
Summerfest was a different story. “They had a rough time trying to keep up with things on the computer. We were really losing business.”