2024 Impact 50 Honoree: Danny Wimmer

FOUNDER
DANNY WIMMER PRESENTS

FIRST JOB IN THE BIZ: Co-owning The 1,400-cap Milk Bar in Jacksonville, Florida
DAY HE JOINED LIMP BIZKIT ON STAGE: May 19. 2024, at Sonic Temple

Danny Wimmer continues to lead an independent,
festival-focused concert entity into expansion, adding days, stages, events and genres and seeing attendance to match despite what some are calling a difficult festival year.

“We just set a new attendance record at Welcome To Rockville, welcoming over 200,000 fans to Daytona for our 13th Welcome To Rockville,” the Danny Wimmer Presents founder said. “We worked really hard on curating that lineup and added 50 bands from last year.” That’s 50 additional bands — not total.

As DWP’s core rock and metal-minded festivals in Florida, Ohio, California and Kentucky continue strong, the company in recent years has expanded into other genres. The Golden Sky festival in Sacramento has quickly grown into a three-day event topped by major contemporary country talent, and the Bourbon & Beyond multi-genre event in Louisville has become what DWP execs are saying may be its biggest event yet.

“We’re gearing up for an unbelievable fall with Bourbon & Beyond, which is going to be one of the biggest festivals in the U.S. this year,” Wimmer said. “Plus we have Rocklahoma, Born & Raised, Louder Than Life, Aftershock and GoldenSky — it’s shaping up to be our biggest year in the company’s history.”

The recipe may sound simple, but operating successful large-scale events while at the mercy of weather and with tens of thousands of rowdy fans onsite at a time is anything but easy.

“It’s getting more difficult to provide affordability to our fans with the unparalleled increase of operating expenses year over year,” Wimmer says. “We work endlessly to try and find ways to keep our prices low, while giving more artists, more experiences, more of everything, back to the fans.”

With a team including CEO Danny Hayes and head of talent Del Williams, Wimmer has earned a sterling reputation among the industry for producing influential, high-quality events.

“Danny is careful about how he curates his lineups, and he wants to deliver what the fans want,” said Cory Brennan, head of 5B Artists + Media, manager for bands including Slipknot, a fixture on DWP lineups. “The Wimmer festivals are a home run.”
Giving the fans what they want is an ethos demonstrated not only on DWP’s rock fest lineups. Bourbon & Beyond this year leans heavily country and Americana, with the red-hot Zach Bryan topping the bill and Kentucky native Tyler Childers not far behind, sharing a line with Neil Young and Dave Matthews Band.

With the acquisition of twinned festivals Born & Raised and Rocklahoma in Pryor, Oklahoma, “We’re open to more of those types of acquisitions as well as the potential of building some new brands to introduce to the world,” Wimmer says.

The company’s DWP Talent Services division continues to build momentum as well, with a varied portfolio that includes high-profile casino venues. Meanwhile, long-standing artist relationships like Tool lead to arena dates. It all adds up to a much more diversified (and year-round) portfolio than the typical independent festival producer.

“We’re just gonna focus on us and what we do, as long as we don’t get distracted by what everyone else is doing, the sky’s the limit,” Wimmer says. “I just love rock ’n’ roll, and I love providing a space for fans to connect with each other and their favorite artists – as long as everything we do is rooted in the communities we are building, we’ll be good.”