Q’s With Sarah Pancheri On Taking The Reins At Milwaukee’s Summerfest

This year, Sarah Pancheri took over as president and chief executive officer of Milwaukee World Festival, after longtime CEO Don Smiley stepped down at the end of 2023.
The nonprofit organization owns and produces the annual Summerfest, billed as the world’s largest festival. Presented by American Family Insurance, Summerfest spans three weekends June 20-22, June 27-29 and July 4-6 with hundreds of performances on 12 stages throughout the 75-acre festival at Henry Maier Festival Park along Lake Michigan. From 2015 to 2022, Pancheri was MWF chief operating officer and vice president of sales and marketing and from 1999 to 2007 she was the director of corporate sales. Pancheri currently serves as the board chair of Visit Milwaukee, the city’s tourism agency, and is a member of the marketing committee of Travel Wisconsin/WI Department of Tourism.

Pollstar: You have a long history with the event, but this is your first year at the helm. How have you prepared?
Sarah Pancheri: I was fortunate to have worked here as a young professional and then come back on a track to have my current position; and I was very fortunate to have about an 18-month transition with my predecessor Don Smiley, who was a great advisor and continues to be a great advisor. Don gave me some great advice, he said, “You don’t always have to have the right answer, but you should always be asking questions.” I would say I’m asking many, many questions and learning every step of the way.

How has Summerfest evolved over the past five decades?
One of the points of difference about what we do here as an independent nonprofit organization, the sponsorship model really allows us to present the best in entertainment across a wide variety of genres and keep our price as accessible as possible. To come to the festival, it’s $28 at the gate to see music from noon to midnight.

How has Milwaukee World Festival affected the strategic vision of Summerfest?
It’s something we believe is special and important to the landscape because we have an independent booking team that books all of our stages. We do our best to book as wide a variety as possible and present as much music as possible. That includes local artists, which we are a great showcase for, as well as national headliners.

How do the festival grounds and permanent facilities factor into that success?
We feel like it is a point of difference and rare in our space to have a permanent facility just steps away from downtown Milwaukee that is completely devoted to public gathering and music.

We are able to offer both the artists and touring teams permanent amenities, permanent stage houses, some of the creature comforts that may not be available when you are performing at other events. But it also supports the fan experience to offer permanent restaurant facilities and restrooms, permanent shade, all of which exists along Lake Michigan. We have a 23,000-seat American Family Insurance Amphitheater that hosts ticketed shows. It’s a separate ticket, but you are given access to the grounds as well.

What investments have the organization made in the festival grounds over the years?
Over the last 20 years, the organization and its sponsors have put $160 million in capital improvements into the festival park. We’ve done that as a nonprofit pouring our own resources into the festival park as well as many sponsors stepping up and providing capital contributions to support that growth. The other piece that we’ve been able to establish more recently is extensive programming of shows outside of Summerfest. The (10,000-capacity) BMO Pavilion and American Family Insurance Amphitheater are used throughout the summer.

In 2023, Henry Maier Festival Park hosted 64 events reaching 1.2 million attendees. What is the impact of Summerfest on Milwaukee?
For Milwaukee we generated $160 million through Summerfest; for the state, Summerfest generated $188 million. So, it is significant. When you think about all the concerts that take place at American Family Insurance Amphitheater and BMO Pavilion as well as all the festivals that take place that generated $263 million across the season for Milwaukee and $318 Million for Wisconsin.

How does the festival support the local community?
We distribute about 90,000 tickets to our community in various ways and that can mean everything from supporting a specific scholarship program to working with different organizations throughout the year. The brand recognition locally and the civic pride is very high, so those tickets are in demand across the community. Ninety percent of our sponsors have a community tie that is embedded in their partnership. We have a grant program with one of our sponsors where we’re supporting local schools with direct money to support their music and general arts programs.

Inclusion and diversity appear central to the booking strategy. The lineup includes Kane Brown with Kameron Marlowe, Illenium, Tyler Childers, Lil Uzi Vert with Lil Yachty, Maroon 5, AJR with Carly Rae Jepsen, Keith Urban and Mötley Crüe.

You can imagine it’s a big task to book all nine days, all 12 hours of nine days across all of our 12 stages. For Summerfest, we are an independent booking team with three full-time staff that grows with lots of friends as we get closer to the festival and things get finalized.
The Summerfest event team books Summerfest, while shows at Summerfest venues outside the festival window are booked in conjunction with (Live Nation affiliate)
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