Dance the night (and day) away with new EDM fest at Allianz Field this weekend – Star Tribune

It’s new, it’s niche and it’s now. This weekend’s Breakaway Festival is the most ambitious electronic dance music (EDM) event ever staged in the Twin Cities.
There have been two-night EDM fests at the Armory in Minneapolis but Breakaway, which has presented outdoor fests around the country for eight years, is aiming for 12,000 people daily outside Allianz Field in St. Paul.
“This is shaping up to be our most popular Breakaway Festival of the season,” said Jarrod Fucci, president of Breakaway, which is doing 10 fests this year. “We believe the Twin Cities deserved an event like this. It was the strongest on-sale in Breakaway’s history. We are getting close to a sellout.”
Breakaway will be the first major music event on the grounds of Allianz Field. It will take place in the parking lot and lawn, not inside the stadium. In fact, the stadium will be off limits, used only for production and security offices.
“We have tremendous relationships with various MLS stadiums around the country,” said Fucci, who casually inquired about other sites in the Twin Cities. “So this was our focus at Allianz Field. The site works well for us. The light rail is right here. It’s easy access for rideshare. Without folks having to drive to the site, that checked a box for us.”
Other promoters have inquired about using the inside of Allianz Field for concerts. Its capacity of 21,000 is ideal, but its grass field can be problematic because of the weight of the stage that’s brought in. The soccer stadium, which opened in 2019, has taken its time about welcoming a music event.
“We’ve spent lot of time to cultivate the right relationships,” said Zacharia Litzelswope, Allianz’s director of guest experience and events, noting that recovering from the pandemic delayed things. “Last year, we partnered with a group called Terrapin Station Entertainment and with some other MLS teams and we made the connection with Breakaway. We’re actively working to continue to do more. The big one we want to do is inside and hopefully that’ll come in the near future.”
Breakaway’s 2024 schedule includes events at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Azura Amphitheater near Kansas City and outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. This is the first year that the company has staged 10 fests.
The company — which has offices in Nashville, Charlotte and Columbus — has a specific strategy.
“We like to build festivals where people live, work and thrive every day and are typically underserved by larger promoters,” Fucci said. “The Twin Cities has a tremendous EDM scene, crowd, research. It was clearly an underserved market for festivals like ours and we hear it from talent, as well. The Twin Cities was asking for it.”
EDM is a niche that’s popular with college-age music lovers. It’s essentially electronic club music spun by DJs, not live bands, augmented with dizzying lights, stage fog and other bells and whistles. Some of the genre’s biggest names like Diplo, David Guetta and Zedd have scored pop hits with featured vocalists. Kaskade and Illenium will headline Breakaway in St. Paul.
Outside Allianz, there will be three stages, including one for silent disco featuring local talent. The area will be surrounded by a scrim-covered fence, 6 to 8 feet tall. There will be food vendors, bars serving alcohol and other drinks, and booths for temporary tattoos, bracelets and the like.
Breakaway is bringing in 120 portable toilets as well as restroom trailers for the VIP section.
Since Allianz Field is in a mixed-use neighborhood with a residential sector nearby, noise issues had to be addressed, along with an 11 p.m. curfew.
“We fortunately worked with the city of St. Paul to secure a sound ordinance that meets our expectations for the event and for the surrounding area,” said Fucci, who attended the City Council meeting where the issue was discussed. “It’s quite a process to pull those permits.”
He said the sound will vary from 80 to mid-90s decibels, compared with an indoor EDM concert that might reach an extreme of 110 dbs.
“We’re excited to come back year after year,” Fucci said. “St. Paul is shaping up to be Breakaway’s flagship event.”
Who: Illenium, Kaskade, Slander and others.
When: 4 to 11 p.m. Fri. & Sat.
Where: Outside Allianz Field, 400 N. Snelling Av., St. Paul
Tickets: $70 and up, breakawayfestival.com/minnesota.
Jon Bream has been a music critic at the Star Tribune since 1975, making him the longest tenured pop critic at a U.S. daily newspaper. He has attended more than 8,000 concerts and written four books (on Prince, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan). Thus far, he has ignored readers’ suggestions that he take a music-appreciation class.
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