Wakarusa organizers expect 20,000 to attend festival

story by Peter Lewis
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The 8th Annual Wakarusa is set to take place just north of Ozark on Mulberry Mountain beginning June 2 and ending June 5.

After its start in Lawrence, Kan., in 2004, Wakarusa made the move in 2009 to its new home nestled in the Ozarks. And by all accounts, the transition from its Kansas origins to a permanent home in Arkansas has been smooth, with revenue and attendance increasing in lock-step with one another over the past two years.

Last year saw attendance reach 18,000, an increase of around 3,000 over 2009. With award-winning acts like My Morning Jacket and Ben Harper headlining the 2011 event, those figures will once more increase.

2011 CHANGES
After selling out the first three pricing tiers for event passes and with the main camping section on grounds also at capacity, the attendance expectations for 2011 are forecasting around 20,000, according to festival director Brett Mosiman.

As the festival gains notoriety, an emphasis has been placed on keeping the experience of Mulberry Mountain and Wakarusa unique. To that end, organizers have instituted an attendance cap on this year’s event.

“We are pretty comfortable as a mid-size festival,” Mosiman admitted.

And though Mosiman said they would be “tickled” to reach the attendance cap of roughly 23,000 people, he felt it isn’t likely to be met.

This has not stopped Mosiman and the Wakarusa team from instigating positive alterations. In addition to the attendance cap, Mosiman related that a second entrance for northern arrivals will be open this year. The purpose of the second entrance should alleviate some of the traffic pressures felt in past years as attendees were channeled through one entrance at the southern part of the grounds.

DIVERSE MUSIC
In its formation, Wakarusa was a festival geared almost exclusively to fans of jam bands. In the earliest years, headliners like Robert Randolph, O.A.R.  and the String Cheese Incident were supported by a wide swathe of bands that would broadly fit into the category of “jam band” or, at the very least, shared characteristics of said genre.

Despite the majority of acts falling firmly within this musical baseline, there has always been an effort to feature acts that didn’t fall into that category.

“I’ve always felt it’s unfair to label Wakarusa a ‘jam band’ festival,” Mosiman said. “It’s certainly a strong influence, but there is a lot of diversity,” he added before ticking off a dozen or so acts that point to the strong cross-section of music featured this year.

And as Wakarusa 2011 draws near, Mosiman noted that the move from Kansas to Arkansas is at the heart of their current fortune.

“Our success is very much linked to the venue and the location,” he said.

To that end, festival organizers have secured a long-term lease for Mulberry Mountain.  Though Mosiman declined to get into specifics, he noted that they were locked into Mulberry Mountain “very permanently. And expect to be there a long time.”