Summer Set Music & Camping Festival

Nothing special. And I do mean NOTHING. What a mess.

Our small group had early access camping. We drove around 8 hrs to be there. We show up and get in line to be checked by security for ‘prohibited items’, which should be no surprise to anyone who gone to a festival before. However, I quickly notice that there are several K-​9 units searching just about every car and around 15 – 20 cops at this checkpoint. Security was super thorough for some cars and called K-​9 officers over at even the slightest scent of illegal goods or nervous teens. These 5 or 6 check lanes are moving at about 1 car per 15 minutes due to how ridiculously thorough the searches are. We get past this checkpoint by sheer luck, just as the sun is going down. We get to move forward to a guy handing out two trash bags for a four day weekend, not a big deal if you come prepared (like our group), don’t make a lot of waste, or had one of the very few garbage can areas near your camp. Set up camp in the dark, seeing people being arrested, and at our campsite on Thursday we noticed the police and security presence was more than a bit ridiculous. Two cops cars drive by slowly, maybe an unmarked, and a security person driving waaay too fast on a quad or golf cart all in a 30 minute period. They would almost repeat this pattern of patrolling the grounds throughout the Thursday night/​all of Friday. What confused me was that about 2 AM Friday we get this random security kid telling all the partying camps that the noise curfew for this field is now. Maybe an hour later a super intoxicated pair of security people come by and chat it up with us telling us it’s all good. I had heard rumblings of how bad security/​the police were at this fest, but my gawd they put the oppression on pretty thick. Another bad experience was the scarcity of water stations. SSMF puts on a festival during one of the warmest months and should acknowledge that there is a need for clean cold free water. Another downside to this festival is the bite it takes out of the olé’ wallet. That should be apparent when you pay for a wristband, but also have to buy a camping or parking spot.
Why was Dance Safe and/​or Bunk Police not present at this festival? Super ignorant and backwards to rely on police arresting all the drug users instead of providing a source of testing kits to campers for a safer weekend.
I do want to add that even though the first night was super sketcy, the police presence was super crazy, and the prices were pretty lame, there were a couple huge up sides to this fest. Our neighbors were all nice people and we all seemed to try and look out for each other. The sense of community was really nice.
The best part of the experience was the music. All the stages had amazing sound quality, great capacity, and amazing acoustics. The walk from stage to stage can be a hike though, be ready for some exercise. Couldn’t have been more impressed by the lineup and sound provided by Summer Set 2015.
My review is that I won’t be back next year. I would rather drive another 8 hours to somewhere that accepts people as people and let’s them express themselves with a lot more freedom.
Side Note: The police working this fest could learn a thing or two from the police who work chill festivals like Electric Forest.
Suggestion to whoever was in charge of this thing: Why not hire less police and instead hire more medics to patrol the areas? Safety of guests comes first right? Also hire a different security firm, they are terribly inefficient and a bit stand-​offish.

For VIP. Where shall I start.
In the original email we were promised VIP ‘special viewing’. Didn’t happen till Saturday and even then it was not ‘VIP’ quality viewing. It was way back from the stage by the sound booth. Horrid. The woods campsite was closed on Friday and it was a cluster fuck to get back into our campsite despite paying over 700 $ to be here. Had an anxiety attack in the process.
Otherwise– the staff, artists, and guests are all great. But the management needs to get their heads outta their asses and pay more attention to communication and priorities. Especially when you’re paying over 700 $ for a ticket and then another 200 $+ to get and stay here.

Summer Set Music Festival was the highlight of my summer! I’ve been to every Summer Set Festival since the beginning in 2012. This past year was definitely my favorite year. They have come a long way since year one when they only had 3 stages and one of the stages was inside of a hockey rink. I did love year one, but this festival gets bigger and better each year with more production, more vendors, and an overall larger festival grounds. They provide a diverse lineup of music with a mixture of EDM and hip hop. Its the perfect size in my opinion, there are enough people there (I’m guessing around 30,000) for it to feel like a true festival, however there are not so many people that it is impossible to navigate, or get near the front of the stage if you are devoted.
They still have a lot to improve on, it probably deserves 3 – 3.5 stars but this is the festival in my backyard as my hometown is right across the border and I have been to every one. It also helps to have all of your closest friends attend. Your party makes a huge impact on the festival experience. This year they tried something new and only offered about half of their camping space to allow for cars to be parked. We bought tickets to late and were not able to get camping with our cars which was very expensive to begin with. Even the North Campground which was the furthest from the festival and their were no cars allowed was ridiculously expensive. Neither of their campgrounds allowed for bon fires. I would suggest camping off site, you will save a ton of money and you get way more space, you are able to have multiple cars, you can have a bonfire, and you aren’t forced to go to the bathroom in disgusting porta potties. You still get the same festival vibes as during that weekend all the surrounding campsites are full of festival goers. O yea, you also are right on the river and there are some pretty sick parties going on in the river. I had way more fun staying at apple river family campground this year instead of camping on site. I heard a lot of bad stories about summer set camping. They hired the police instead of their own security and they arrested hundreds of people for having drugs. Many people were thrown out of the festival.
Overall the production isn’t over the top. I’ve been to many other festivals that blow this out of the water when it comes production (Ultra, Electric Forest). When it comes down to it though, it’s not about the production it’s about the community of people who attend and we brought it this year. There were hundreds of totems, everybody brought something unique to the table. Even being a new, small festival the people and community made this festival come alive. Everyone was having a good time, you could feel the love in the air. I will be back year after year!