1980's Fashion Bands at 1980s Summerfest

While Summerfest was in growth mode in the 1970s, the next decade brought the Big Gig to an entirely new level.

In the '70s, wrote Steven J. Korris in "The Summerfest Follies," his 2001 commodity in Wisconsin Interest mag, "Omnipresence stayed in a higher place 500,000 a year, and the annual surplus grew. In 1979, under the leadership of lath president John Schmitt, Summerfest made $423,034, bringing its cash residue to $i,101,385.

"Looking for ways to invest the hefty balance in continued growth," Korris continued, "he decided that a big amphitheater would concenter the all-time possible shows. He convinced his lath members, and they announced in 1983 that they would build it. They had spoken too soon, however."

At the same time, Summerfest Executive Managing director Rod Lanser – who replaced James Butler in 1979 – decided to call it quits, closing the door on ane flow and opening another for a new director who would become a star in her own right.

"Summerfest entered a new era in 1983 when Lanser unexpectedly resigned, citing task stress and wellness concerns," wrote Dave Tianen in his book, "Summerfest: Libation by the Lake, forty Years of Music and Memories."

"His replacement was a former (clothed) Playboy encompass girl, NFL cheerleader, mayoral aide and professional fund-raiser named Elizabeth 'Bo' Black."

Taking over in 1984, Bo Blackness became not only the boss, merely also the face up of Summerfest for the next two decades. During her run, Summerfest and Bo Black became almost a single entity in the eyes of Milwaukee.

According to Tianen, Black was a superb fundraiser and a tireless promoter of the festival.

(On a personal annotation, the 1980s are when I met Summerfest for the beginning time. Only days before the 1983 festival, I moved to Milwaukee, where I knew no 1. I spent a lot of time at the old Rock Stage on the south end of the grounds, seeing a young Stevie Ray Vaughan with Double Problem, R.E.M., and locals like Tearing Femmes, Colour Radio and Dark Facade. Thank you to invitations from my brother, I too experienced the sometime Main Stage for the first time, seeing Eric Clapton and Kool & the Gang.)

Blackness began her tenure when Summerfest needed to re-upwardly its before long-to-expire lease and sign a long-term bargain if Lanser'southward dream of an amphitheater were to become reality.

Negotiations with the Board of Harbor Commissioners went on, literally, for years, but a bargain was ultimately struck and the 23,000-seat amphitheater would be built on the south end of the grounds.

And not a minute likewise shortly for the festival, which was already feeling the hurting of its outdated principal stage, according to Summerfest Entertainment Director Bob Babisch.

"Around the time the amp finally got congenital, we were already in the procedure of losing large shows," Babisch told me. "Not only because we did not accept the chapters – the old primary stage could merely concord 16,000 people – merely because we could non put the production in that touring acts were starting to bring on the road.

"The last roof on the old Primary Stage had a pipe running across the middle of the phase about 15 feet above the basis. The pipe was part of the infrastructure of the stage. Because bands were taking out lighting rigs that needed a elevation of 20 to 25 feet minimum, nosotros started to lose shows. We likewise could not put much weight on the roof, so we could not 'fly' (hang) sound cabinets.

"With other buildings and venues having more capacity – anywhere from eighteen,000 to 30,000 – we were losing the names that are needed to exist chosen a first grade event."

This situation was made woefully credible at the 1984 festival, when more than than 25,000 people turned out to come across Huey Lewis & the News perform at the 14,000-seat Main Stage.

The new venue, with covered seating sloping up from the stage – which faced the lake – and a grassy, uncovered seating area, was much like a number of similar venues constructed around the country at the time.

^{Aretha Franklin performs at Summerfest 1981.}

Information technology toll $12 1000000 and was funded past bond sales and donations of $ii million from the M. Heileman Brewing Co. and $1 meg from the Marcus family, whose name was attached to the facility until this yr.

The new stage surely helped Summerfest continue to grow. According to Korris, attendance at the Big Gig jumped from 671,412 in 1986 – the yr before the amphitheater opened – to 873,235 in 1996 – a thirty percent boost.

Co-ordinate to Summerfest, it was estimated in 1989 that the festival generated $35 one thousand thousand for the local economy.

In its first year, the Marcus Amphitheater hosted the Beach Boys, The Bangles, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Run-DMC, Duran Duran, Jimmy Buffett, Chicago, Bruce Hornsby & The Range, John Denver with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Whitney Houston.

Before the '80s were over, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Sting and others would perform there.

Once again the first of a new Summerfest affiliate would coincide with the end of another.

"The 1987 celebration likewise marked the terminal bow of the man best-selling as the Father of Summerfest, Mayor Henry Maier," wrote Tianen in his book. "The retiring mayor visited the grounds and led a sing-along that included two songs of his own composition, 'The Milwaukee Summerfest Polka' and 'Mayor Maier'due south Farewell,' written specifically for the occasion.

"For his farewell visit, the mayor repeated his often-stated view of the Summerfest mission: 'The ordinary guy in Milwaukee and outside of Milwaukee, who did not have a membership in a country club or didn't have a country home on a lake, needed a identify to go and things to do in the summertime'."

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