With LouFest on the horizon, Cadenza decided to get an inside scoop on the LouFest brand and how it has grown to become an integral part of the city’s music scene over the past seven years. As you may know, the festival is run by local entrepreneurs at Listen Live Entertainment. Recently, one of the founders, Brian Cohen, left to create a multimedia festival, Murmuration, which is set to debut in late September 2016. We reached out to one of LouFest’s managing partners, Mike Van Hee, to talk about what has made the festival so successful and how they plan to adapt and grow LouFest in the upcoming years.

Billy Idol performs at Loufest 2015 in Forest Park. The music festival will continue this year in Forest Park at the Central Fields.

Student Life: How does it feel to have watched the festival progress from hosting [more] regional bands to getting headliners like OutKast and Hozier?

Mike Van Hee: It’s great—those were all part of the original plan and goal. It was great to see all of that stuff come to fruition sooner than we thought we would see it. Obviously, the festival grows every year. We’ve seen it grow to the level where 50,000 folks [come] over the weekend, something we never thought we would be talking about. I think now we see the potential of the festival to continue growing and becoming an institution in St. Louis, where everyone has it blocked off [during] the second weekend of September.

SL: Do you think that the sound last year was much more of a LouFest brand or that the sound will change from year to year in terms of headlining talent?

MVH: I think every year will be different. It’s difficult to say…you can’t expect one specific sound. When we check out headliners we have to take a bunch of things into consideration—the schedule, our budget. We take a look at who’s available and who makes sense. St. Louis is a unique town—it’s not the easiest place to book for. We want to make sure that we are trying to tailor the festival to our core. And that’s definitely you all at [Washington University]—you are the shadow of the festival. We try to make sure that there are a good number of bands that Wash. U. students can get excited about. We’re trying to make LouFest a Wash. U. tradition—after you guys move back and settle into classes, everyone walks over to LouFest.

SL: How do you guys see Brian Cohen’s festival fitting in with Loufest? How have you all moved on [about] not having one of your founders there?

MVH: Our goal is to always have a festival that celebrates St. Louis. We want to enhance the overall experience of the festival, the Market Square, the art installations, the Nosh Pit, the food court—all that fun stuff. We’re at the level now where there are more applications than we can handle, so we can tailor some of those areas to feature the best businesses in St. Louis. We don’t know much about Brian’s venture, but it sounds like it can complement LouFest well. Whatever we can do on our end to help that festival…we’re there to support… We know how hard it is to get a festival started. It sounds like it’s going to be an amazing event. I don’t think there’s going to be much crossover since it’s very focused on a multimedia experience. We’re excited to draw attention to St. Louis—any kind of festival is a positive for the city.

SL: The dates for LouFest were released later this year. Did that affect your ability to book artists?

MVH: From a public perspective, it took us a while to get dates out. In terms of booking, we were having conversations with agents already to make sure artists were holding dates for us. We’re still on the same weekend, so everyone that has grown to get familiar with LouFest already had it in their calendars.

SL: Now that the festival has become popular, do you have more artists coming to you? How does the booking process work for you now?

MVH: Now, more than ever, we’ve got more brand recognition for the festival. What helps is that everyone who comes has an amazing time. With everything that they get to do in the park…we are blessed with the number one city park in the U.S.—Forest Park is the hero of the entire event. Once we bring some of these bands to town, and they’re walking around the park, they’re saying this is one of the coolest venues they’ve been to because the setting makes the entire experience so much better. A lot of times at festivals, artists stay backstage or go back to their tour buses. It’s completely the opposite at LouFest—artists really want to see the festival and experience it themselves.

Obviously, Forest Park isn’t on a lot of peoples’ radar on a national level, but it’s starting to now with the awards it has received recently. We really believe that Forest Park is a gem of the city. We bring folks from all over the world to the jewel of our town. It also helps when people communicate to managers, and those managers iterate to us that their bands had an incredible time at the festival. Once a musician comes to LouFest, they really understand what we’re about.

SL: When you have artists like Albert Hammond Jr. (The Strokes), Nate Ruess (Fun.) and Brandon Flowers (The Killers) come and perform at LouFest on their own—do you have a chance to then bring their bands back to LouFest?

MVH: Absolutely—anybody that has already been to the festival has some familiarity with it. Take Brandon Flowers, who headlined with the Killers at LouFest in 2013. He had that familiarity and was releasing a new album in his solo project. There was a comfort level in the experience, and he had a great time here in 2013. It makes some of those initial conversations much easier when people bring their side/solo projects to LouFest.

SL: In the first few years of LouFest, was there an artist you caught on the brink who has gone on to do incredible things since?

MVH: Phantogram stands out. They blew up after we brought them to LouFest in 2012. They have really jumped onto another level, you know? It was great when they played in 2012. In terms of someone who has released a lot of albums since and has grown year over year, they really stick out. As does Robert DeLong—he has grown substantially enough for us to give him a later set. His live show is amazing, and he is somebody we have seen go from an early afternoon slot to the 5-6 p.m. slot. He had people having a great time last year. The other band is Alabama Shakes. They played in 2013 when they were up and coming. But, man—have they grown since.