SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Rock the Country organizers say it was possibly the largest paid music festival Sioux Falls has ever experienced.
“We had an excess of 30,000 people out there between both days. It was a pretty interesting site,” Pepper Entertainment CEO and President Jered Johnson said.
After nearly a year and a half of planning, Pepper Entertainment said it felt well-prepared for the Rock the Country Music Festival. Organizers said the two-day event was a great opportunity for their company and Sioux Falls businesses.
“The hotels were all sold out within almost 50 miles, I was told. Restaurants and nightlife, I talked to friends that owned businesses in that space who said we had so many people coming in,” Johnson said.
Still, organizers acknowledge there’s room for improvement, and they’re already reviewing feedback to do just that.
“A lot of social media chatter was not necessarily bad,” Johnson said. “Just people commenting on hey, where’s the shuttle pickups and people jumping in to say you can get it here and here’s how it works.”
Now that the festival is, crews spent Monday cleaning up the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds to prepare for its next event.
“They’re bringing in a pretty big crew,” W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds President and CEO Scott Wick said. “The first crew is just piling up big stuff, and then there’s another crew coming in to do the finer detailing and get it all cleaned up.”
With this year’s festival in the books, officials said they’re already eyeing dates for next year.
If you attended the Rock the Country music festival and have feedback about your experience that you’d like to share, you can email Pepper Entertainment at info@pepperentertainment.com.
