How Capacity Issues Affected The Taste Of Minnesota Festival Live

The Taste of Minnesota has been around for years, but had to take a couple of years off because of COVID, then they changed locations, but has always been a great FREE event. Free, as in you don't pay an admission fee. Some people think that when you say "free event" that means that everything is free, and it doesn't mean that. You definitely have to pay for anything that you eat, or drink there.

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FREE LIVE MUSIC

Also - the live music is amazing at this event. And all of that is free. You just wander through the grounds and enjoy the music. BUT the lineup this year was amazing, and so attendance was at capacity.

NATIONAL RECORDING ARTISTS AT THE EVENT

This did not sit too well with people wanting to see Ludacris. About 10 minutes before he was supposed to go on, authorities at the event shut down any more attendees. They were at capacity, and were denying any more entry for the show.

PEOPLE DOING ANYTHING TO "SNEAK" IN

According to KARE 11, people were jumping the fence, and trying to get in even though extra police were trying to stop people from doing that.

Ten minutes before Ludacris was scheduled to go on, Taste of Minnesota posted that the event was at capacity and no more attendees could enter.
Additional Minneapolis police officers were called for crowd control. On social media, attendees shared that people shoved their way into the concert and hopped fences after the event was at capacity.

PLAN AHEAD

My thought was that if you really wanted to see a particular artist, maybe you should have thought of going a bit sooner. Obviously when there isn't a charge to see any of the artists people are going to flock there in droves. But not everyone thinks that way, and this caused an issue.

Maybe they will start to charge? Probably not when it's always been a free event, unless you want the VIP treatment. Those tickets do have a fee of a couple of hundred dollars or more. Other than that, it's free. Maybe put out something saying that if you aren't there by a certain time, you may not be allowed in, depending on the attendance.