Taking ‘Summer’ out of Summerfest

Summerfest, the world’s largest music festival, is known best for being held in the middle of summer. Walking through downtown Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds, while embracing the hot sun and winds of Lake Michigan, is what makes this music festival so memorable.

But with the 2021 dates being changed from June to September, is it bad that the idea of ‘summer’ is being taken out of the equation? Without a doubt, yes. Summer is the most important element to many music festivals, let alone the world’s largest one.

Summerfest is an annual music festival held at the Henry Maier Festival Park in downtown Milwaukee. The grounds welcome around 750,000 fans into the festival each year to attend the concerts of the music industry’s most popular artists. In 2020, with the outbreak of COVID-19, Summerfest concerts were cancelled. However, in the big return of music concerts around the world, Summerfest is lacking in its 53^rd edition of the festival.

About 74% of patrons who attend Summerfest range in ages 19 to 50. This includes the large demographic of young adults, many of whom are assumed to be in college. Those in college are expected to work their hardest the months of September to May, after which they receive a three-month summer from June to August. These three months are crunch time for those itching to get out and enjoy their time off studying. However, many of those students and young adults will not be able to cross Summerfest off on their list of to-dos this summer. When the concerts begin in September instead of June, many students will just be starting school and their summer break will come to an end.  

Take UW-Milwaukee for example. UWM is a college campus located less than 10 minutes from the Summerfest grounds, a convenient location for those attending the University. However, UWM’s fall instruction begins on Thursday September 2, which also happens to be the first day of Summerfest. UWM students are not the only ones who are known for attending Summerfest, so what about those who travel from farther away? September is a relatively universal month for school instruction to begin, so it can be inferred that many other colleges around the state and country will have their students back in school at this time.

Imagine being a student during this pandemic. While everyone has suffered, students in general have had so much taken away from them. To take Summerfest out of summer and hold it during the start of school is understandably upsetting for many young adults, especially after not having Summerfest at all last year. Not to mention that the festival will be held over the span of three weekends including the days Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Two of these days are during the week which will make it difficult for those in school to attend. In past years, the festival would take place every day over a two-week time span at the end of June. While it would be during the weekdays, the exception was summer break and because of that many people would find themselves free to attend even during the week.

What makes the cancellation of Summerfest’s summer element even more disappointing is seeing other musical festivals around the country sticking to their summer dates. Country Jam in Colorado, Country Fest in Wisconsin, Rolling Loud in Florida and Lollapalooza in Illinois are all being held in the months of June and July for summer 2021. How is it that they can make it work but Summerfest can’t?

The Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. stated their reason for moving the Summerfest 2021 dates to September is to allow for health officials to vaccinate more of the general public. While this is an understandable reason, considering all that students have been put through since the start of COVID-19, there are other ways to ensure safety. Lollapalooza held in Chicago will be taking place from July 29-August 3. While this event isn’t nearly as long as Summerfest, there are still a large number of people who attend. Lollapalooza is requiring everyone attending to provide proof of vaccination or a negative covid test for each day they attend. The point is that they are sticking to their original summer dates to benefit their audience.

Yes, it is important for people to continue to get vaccinated, but how much will three more months do? According to the COVID-19 Wisconsin Vaccine Tracker, 46.39% of people have already been fully vaccinated, with over 50% of people having had at least one dose. That percentage is high and impressive given how controversial the vaccine is. This factor alone doesn’t seem to be enough to move the Summerfest dates back three whole months.

While September is technically at the end of summer, for many college students including myself, this is the end of summer break. The to-do lists us students have will change from attending music festivals to studying for exams and making deadlines. COVID-19 has had many unfortunate consequences for the school year alone, and to take that into the summer break as well is stripping people of their much needed free time, outside in the hot summer sun. It is called Summerfest, not ‘September-fest’, and to take away the element of summer from this well-known festival is disappointing to say the least.