Tommy Washbush
Where can you see Walter White walk hand in hand with Wonder Woman while SpongeBob Squarepants helps the Justice League adjust their costumes and a Care Bear crowd-surfs in the background? At Freakfest, of course. Madison's iconic Halloween party features live music and up to 40,000 attendees bent on showing off the city's weird sense of humor and unabashed flair for theatrics.
This bash seems tame to some post-college locals who recall the Halloween excess that overtook State Street before Freakfest arrived in 2006. These celebrations were plagued with riots and vandalism beginning in the early 1980s. CNN headlines followed, and State Street Halloween revelry got pegged as a threat to local businesses and community safety.
"Freakfest didn't arise in a vacuum. Simply put, Halloween on State Street had become a huge liability for the city," says Tag Evers of Frank Productions, the concert promotion company that serves as the event's chief talent buyer.
"It was a Midwest gathering point attracting, increasingly, the desire to get really drunk and do damage. At that time, 100,000 people would come down to State Street. I remember doing a show at Regent Street Retreat (now the Red Zone), and there was a group of four guys walking by. One of them kicked the side of a car and said, 'I can't wait to break shit!' That was part of what Halloween had become: guys breaking shit."
Madison Police Department spokesman Joel DeSpain says things turned ugly when the party got too big and the crowd's attitude became less neighborly.
"At one time it was a spontaneous event, and peaceful, but a lot of people were coming in from all over the Midwest. There was chatter that this was a place to come and let loose, and [there was] this wilding effect," he says. "Fires were set, windows broken. That's when there was tear gas and pepper spray used on the crowd. It was a dangerous, not to mention expensive, situation."
According to a December 2002 MPD Halloween After Action Report (PDF), 12 businesses suffered approximately $24,000 in property damage during Halloween weekend that year. About $8,300 was lost to shop looting, and a police squad car sustained over $2,000 in damage. Riots prompted police to use tear gas.
The city was faced with two options: eliminate the event or try to turn it into something containable, organized and positive. Under former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, and now with the support of current Mayor Paul Soglin, there's been a sea change.
As Evers puts it, "What was an ugly mark has become a signature event for Madison." He's proud that Frank Productions has helped give the festivities a facelift.
"We work diligently with the city and the Downtown Business District to make sure this is a fun and safe event for everyone," he says.
A shocking transformation
These days Freakfest is a gated, ticketed event sponsored by Frank Productions. Selling tickets to an official bash on State Street reduces a type of partying Evers calls "the drive-by approach: bringing people who are attending just to go crazy." The absence of beer gardens on State Street makes it easier for bars and restaurants to enforce ID checks. Increased police presence means protection from vandalism, too.
It has taken a gargantuan effort to change the event's culture and personality.
"It's pretty fine-tuned now, so it's not as painstaking as it was in the past, but nobody wants to let the gains slip away by being nonchalant," Evers says.
Freakfest planning for 2015 kicks off just two weeks after the 2014 event, beginning with a meeting where Frank Productions and the city assess the most recent event and make recommendations for the next one.
Frank Productions begins Freakfest marketing campaigns in early October.
"There's a built-in demand for this; we don't have to take out full-page ads the week it goes on sale," Evers says. "We'll be doing a tremendous amount of social media and street marketing with posters and postcards and flyers, and there will be multiple meetings with the city between now and the event where we go over placement of gates, fencing, porta-potties."
As the curator of Freakfest's live music, which covers three stages and takes place over six hours (see sidebar), Evers views artist selection as a key aspect of safety as well as fun.
"The acts are vetted. We don't put artists on stage who we think are going to stir up problems and create an anxious moment where you feel like people are going to get out of control and start hurting one another," he explains. "We look at videos of past performances and get a feel for what the crowd is going to be like; certain crowds have certain reputations."
Evers lists electronic dance music as an example of a genre he's shying away from when booking headliners.
"We did Big Gigantic two years ago, and there was some pushback from the city because of the way the crowd behaved. Some EDM shows end up with transports to the hospital, so we decided to steer clear of that for now."
When a major player in the Madison concert scene mentions avoiding an entire genre of music, it's hard not to think of hip-hop. After all, Atmosphere, a Twin Cities hip-hop duo with a large Madison following, will headline Freakfest this year.
Evers calls hip-hop "a somewhat controversial art form."
"Not all of hip-hop is the same," he says, pointing out that Atmosphere's music falls into a category he calls "conscious hip-hop." Presumably, the positive messages this style of hip-hop cultivates are important to the family-friendly setting he hopes to maintain at Freakfest.
DeSpain says that when it comes to music, the police focus on controlling the size of the crowd.
"[Frank Productions] brings in some really good bands, and that means, particularly up near the Capitol, we're concerned more with too many folks in one congested area," he says.
Evers notes that several hip-hop performers have been a good fit for Freakfests past.
"This is the third year in a row we've had a hip-hop headliner. Two years ago we had Mac Miller; last year we had Chitty Bang. I've done more hip-hop than any other promoter in town bringing national acts to Madison," he says.
Evers says one goal is to please a large and diverse crowd.
"We try to come up with a lineup that different people find interesting, realizing that people come to Freakfest for different reasons," Evers says, noting that "not everybody is there for the music. Some people are just there to walk up and down State Street looking at costumes and taking pictures."
Dr. Freakenstein
Evers says the first few Freakfests took a more conservative approach to music booking.
"When it first started, campus voices were really negative; they felt like we were taking away their Halloween," he explains. "Early on, there was a conscious attempt to have stuff that was more bland because the city didn't want 100,000 people at the event. They wanted to bring down the numbers. Now we've been given more flexibility and greater latitude, and we're looking for artists that are more compelling."
Evers says it's important to consider diversity in booking such a widely attended event.
"Last year Matt & Kim provided us with some gender diversity. We have some women booked, but not as headliners this year. Next year I think we need to address that and keep that in mind," he says. "We have women and people of color represented in the lineup, but these things can always be improved."
Evers says setting the Freakfest lineup takes months. Artist availability is one challenge. Maintaining a balance of local and national acts is another.
"Four out of five artists on the WSUM Stage are local. Two of six artists on the Capitol Stage are local. We think it's important [to feature local musicians], and we could do a better job," he says. "We're aware that people like the idea of playing Freakfest, and we want to make that more possible for a wider range of artists. There aren't many times where you get to play in front of this many people."
Though he doesn't dress up for Halloween, "bundled-up walker" would be Evers' costume of choice, and with good reason: "I probably walk 10 miles or more over the course of the event day -- going back and forth, checking out the stages and making sure everybody's happy."
Evers compares his concert promoter role to that of a party host: "You're not the first person to sit down, and you're not the first person to leave. You're there to ensure that everybody has a good time."
Making sure guests are safe is also of the utmost importance.
"There's not anything taking place at Freakfest that the city and police department don't know about," Evers says.
After that come goals like minimizing costs and further increasing safety. To this end, stakeholders have been fine-tuning the Freakfest planning process recently.
"The success is measured in the reduced costs to the city of dealing with a controlled crowd," Evers says.
DeSpain notes that Freakfest costs for the MPD have ranged from about $138,000 last year to $377,000 in 2006.
Since Freakfest began the MPD has come close to eliminating serious incidents on State Street at Halloween.
"In the last seven years, we've seen nothing serious with property damage or riots. On any given weekend, we're going to have arrests for disorderly conduct, but certainly the number has gone down dramatically," DeSpain says. "The event was a black eye for the city, but now it's something we're proud of. Having the stages, the music, the food -- it's become more about having fun, and it fits Madison's reputation as a quirky place."
To prepare for a mass of people, police have created multiple contingency areas in the event layout, which can be opened up if extra space is needed. DeSpain says police also use a command post to monitor the crowd with video cameras.
"If we have someone try to stir things up, officers are alerted, and the person can be removed from the crowd," DeSpain says, adding that Freakfest attendees should use common sense and leave the plastic guns at home.
"We haven't had serious situations or any real troublemakers, [but] sometimes we get people who bring look-alike 'weapons,' and we have to confiscate some of those things."
But by and large, the vibe of the festivities has changed for the better, according to Evers and others. In other words, it's about so much more than breaking stuff.
"People come to Freakfest to have fun, not to cause trouble," Evers says.
