FRANKLIN, Wis — Severe weather interrupted a number of major events across Southeast Wisconsin on Saturday.
Thousands were forced to evacuate from Franklin Field during the Tacos and Tequila Festival when the storms moved into southern Milwaukee County.
Concerts were paused and crowds were sent scrambling to find shelter at Summerfest, too. Screens there told fans there were "no storm shelters on site."
And, in Walworth County, a major concert was postponed at Alpine Valley's music venue. That venue was evacuated and fans rushed to their cars with nowhere else to take shelter.
Following those storms which caused disruptions at concerts and festivals across our area over the weekend, TMJ4's Ryan Jenkins wanted to learn more about what goes into preparing for those types of emergencies. He met up with one of the organizers of the Tacos and Tequila Festival to ask.
Ryan Jenkins: "Those storms, they moved in pretty quickly. You had thousands of people here. What kind of planning goes into keeping all of those people safe?"
Joshua James: "Lots of planning."
Joshua James is the Vice President of Social House Entertainment. He helped to plan the festival in Franklin. He said the decision to cancel the final part of the show on Saturday, as Ludacris was performing, was one that he and his team did not take lightly.
"Our hope was that the storm, as it approached, would dissipate or move around similar to how it had throughout the day. That wasn't the case. So, once Ludacris went on stage we had to make that tough call of canceling the remainder of the event," said James.
James said the quick move to get everyone to safety is something they plan for.
"We have a weather center that is located on the stage and we also have one up in the command center, and actually for this event we worked with police, fire, dispatch, our teams and they were all located up in the command center. We gathered prior to, as the storm was approaching, and we started making plans," James said.
While this festival, along with Summerfest in Milwaukee and Alpine Valley in Walworth County, all ordered evacuations or paused concerts to offer a chance for people to get to safety, Jenkins learned there are no Wisconsin laws on the books that actually require outdoor concert venues to provide shelter for the thousands of vulnerable fans if or when a storm approaches.
Emergency management officials at both the state and county levels tell Jenkins it is usually a venue-by-venue or municipality-by-municipality decision.
"Our plan here at Franklin Field was, in the event of an evacuation where we had to clear the venue and get people to a safe spot quickly, that was going to be the MOSH center here on campus," said James about the Tacos & Tequilla festival in Franklin.
Once the storms passed, concerts at Summerfest were able to resume and the concert at Alpine Valley was postponed until Sunday, June 30. However, the rest of the event in Franklin had to be canceled. A decision some of the ticketholders called a "bummer."
"I understand people are upset," said James. "You have every right to be upset however at the end of the day, you can't be upset for us taking precautions to keep people safe."
Precautions that kept people safe in a state with no requirements to provide outdoor crowds a place to take cover.
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