Scott Ziel compares crafting Summerfest’s massive lineup to dumping a 1,000-piece puzzle on the floor. The vice president of entertainment and his team of talent buyers sort the pieces into styles – rap, country, rock, etc. – and connect them slowly to create the full picture.
Only there’s no right answer to what it should look like. The team leans on factors like ticket sales history and streaming numbers, plus some intuition and luck to figure that out. They meet several times a week, pitching their festival picks well over a year in advance.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
It’s a sizable effort, one that Ziel has been a part of since 1992. He took over as lead booker in 2022, and he shared with us what goes into booking more than 600 acts every year for the Big Gig.
Where do you start?
We start with our ground stages. We look at who’s going to be the headliner, who’s going to have the biggest name for some of the stages, and then once we secure them, we have an idea of the slots that we want to fill with national bands at 4, 6, 8, leading into 10 o’clock. But the headliner really dictates the feel and the vibe for the day.
Is the process a bit of a guessing game?
I always say there’s the science, there’s the business side of making decisions. But I just go back to listening to an artist’s songs, where it’s like, “Wow, this sounds different. There’s nothing else out there like it.”
It’s like your stock portfolio: You buy a couple of conservative things, and you take a couple of chances here and there. But ultimately the final part is going with your gut.
Do you have a good feel for a wide range of genres?
That’s the exciting and fun part of this job, and it’s also the most challenging part. When streaming [music] came together, it just opened the door for people to be exposed to all different types of music that maybe they haven’t heard before.
So, it’s very important for us to have a handle on all the different genres. And the team of people – I picked them because they have experience. Some of them are more well-versed in country or hip-hop or Latin music. We all have our specific niches, so that you can have the time to follow the trends and new artists that are coming up.
Who was the toughest act to book?
The one that took probably the longest – and we had to be the most patient on – was Hozier. An artist like that becomes in such demand in the States and all over the world. I worked on that for eight months to finally get a commitment. Those are the ones where you’re not running the sprint, you’re running the marathon.
It’s funny because artists – some of them are super organized. They know exactly what they’re doing next year, probably even the year after that. And then others lay back and they make decisions slower, or they’ll get a bunch of offers and they don’t know what they’re going to do.
And then, all of a sudden, they wake up one day and they say, “Well, OK, yeah, let’s go tour. Boom.” You never know when the phone rings what the outcome’s going to be.
If you like electronic try Loud Luxury
(July 3, 9:30 p.m., Generac Power Stage) and Porter Robinson (July 4, 9:30 p.m., Generac Power Stage)
If you like country check out Nate Smith
(July 5, 10 p.m., UScellular Connection Stage) and Billy Currington (June 21, 10 p.m., UScellular Connection Stage)
If you like reunions see Fountains of Wayne play their first show in 12 years
(July 4, 10 p.m., Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard)
If you want to see The Next Big Thing Ziel thinks it’s singer-songwriter Alex Warren
(July 4, 10:30 p.m., UScellular Connection Stage)
