Henry Maier Festival Park is a 75-acre festival park located in Milwaukee , Wisconsin on the shore Lake Michigan and is the site of the annual Summerfest musical festival and the home of the American Family Insurance Amphitheater .
8-587: Milwaukee Irish Fest (locally known as Irish Fest ) is a yearly Irish-American festival held at the Henry Maier Festival Park , on Lake Michigan , United States, every third weekend in August. Over 130,000 people attend the Fest each year to watch nearly 250 acts on 17 stages. The four-day festival started in 1981, founded by Edward J. Ward. Irish Fest is the largest of the ethnic festivals held at
16-542: The Summerfest grounds which report attendance, and holds claim to the largest celebration of Irish Culture in the world. Festival highlights include: The annual closing event is the Scattering, a gathering of many of the festival's musicians playing together in one combined session , with fifty or more musicians on the stage at one time not uncommon. Irish Fest celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005, which saw
24-527: The Army closed them in an effort to reduce costs. The land was then sold to the city and became a top possible destination by Summerfest's early leaders, who worried for the fest's future after bad weather caused a poor turnout in its second year. Organizers believed that a centralized location was crucial, and the lakefront site appeared ideal. In 1970, the Harbor Commission, which took ownership of
32-513: The land from the Army, constructed a deal and began leasing the site to Summerfest for one dollar a year. The recently formed Summerfest quickly set up makeshift offices from the remaining barracks and the control building. The history of the Henry Maier Festival Park starts with Summerfest in 1968. The music festival was created that year, and found some success, being held in 35 different locations. The next year, however,
40-484: The middle of a grassy, muddy field. Despite this, the central location was key to the festival's success, ensuring the existence and expansion of the grounds. Construction continued through the 1970s and 1980s, with the highlight of the creation of the Marcus Amphitheater , a 23,000 seat partially covered venue, in 1987. Various ethnic and cultural festivals came to be held at the festival park beginning in
48-585: The opening of the new Celtic Roots stage. President of Ireland , Mary McAleese also attended that year's fest. There was no Irish Fest in 2020 as officials cited the COVID-19 pandemic as grounds for scrapping most events & moving others online. Henry Maier Festival Park In 1927 Maitland Airport (also the Milwaukee seaplane port) was opened. It was one of the city's first airstrips. The airport remained in operation for more than 20 years before it
56-513: Was inundated with horrific weather, forcing cancellation of the last day and ensuring financial losses for that year. In 1970 a central location was decided upon: an abandoned strip of land along the lakefront in the downtown area, which was the former Maitland Airport and served as a Nike missile site during the Cold War. The early Summerfest Grounds consisted of little more than concrete blocks with wooden slabs placed on top to serve as stages, in
64-597: Was replaced by a Nike missile installation, established during the height of 1950s Cold War tensions. The site was one of eight in the Greater Milwaukee area and hosted both the Nike Ajax and nuclear-capable Nike Hercules missiles as a means of last resort against a possible attack by the Soviet Union. The military installation, along with a radar station at Lake Park, remained in use until 1969 when
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