This week on The Disclaimer, WMSE's weekly half hour of cultural commentary and judgement with Ryan Schleicher, Milwaukee Record co-founder Matt Wild and I, we're assessing the state of Summerfest. The festival announced its 50th anniversary grounds stage lineup this week on a national platform, Jimmy Kimmel's TV show, and is promoting it with a poster that looks deliberately Coachella-esque. In Milwaukee we like to think of Summerfest as a local thing, but is the festival trying to position itself as a national attraction? And does it have the lineup to compete with the Lollapaloozas, Bonnaroos and other big boys of the world? Or, with its long, 11-day run and diverse, sometimes quantity-over-quality lineup, is the festival just too different from those other events to grab some of their market share?
You can stream the episode below, and catch up on past episodes of The Disclaimer on iTunes.
