Headwaters Country Jam Rocked...So Did the County

Last weekend, some 4,000 revelers arrived at a pasture between Cardwell and Three Forks for Headwaters Country Jam, an annual three-day country music festival. As the bands played on - Ashley McBryde, Koe Wetzel, and Parker McCollum were headliners - Jefferson County, within whose boundaries the festival venue (barely) lies, was very much behind the scenes.

The county Sheriff's Office stationed eight to nine deputies at the site throughout the weekend. The county sanitarian, Megan Bullock, ensured there were adequate toilets and garbage disposal. The Weed Department worked with the land owner to make sure noxious weeds wouldn't be spread. And the Boulder Bull Mountain Fire Department was on hand, just in case.

"It's quite a complicated process," says Bruce Binkowski, the county's events director. "We have a bunch of county departments working together to make this happen."

Country Jam is one of two big music events each summer at "The Bridge," 11 miles east of Cardwell on Route 2. The other, Rockin the Rivers, is expected to draw 2,700 attendees Aug. 10-12. Rappin the Rivers, a new event that's expected to be smaller in its first year, will be Aug. 18-20.

In each case, concert promoters must submit a detailed permit application to the county's health department. The application provides estimated attendance and a map of the location showing entrances, exits, emergency access, water for fire suppression, first aid stations and more.

The application lists all food and merchandise vendors; food vendors must provide documentation of their food purveyor and liquor licenses. Promoters need to contract with traffic control, security, and ambulance services.

The county collects a sizable fee for all this: $200 per 100 people, or $350 per 100 where alcohol is served - which, for these events, it definitely is. For Country Jam, produced by Live Nation Entertainment, the permit fee totals about $14,000. The county also gets $35 from each vendor selling alcohol. As a private contractor, the Boulder Bull Mountain Fire Department is paid $4,000 to provide fire protection for the weekend.

(By way of context, a three-day general admission pass to Headwaters Country Jam cost $215, probably yielding Live Nation more than $800,000 in ticket revenue alone. A weekend Rockin' the Rivers pass costs $180, and a camping spot goes for another $160.)

But the county's take is not an easy windfall. It has to ensure the safety of several thousand concertgoers, which requires planning and coordination of many moving parts. "I started working on [the Country Jam permit] in March," Bullock says. "It gets to be a long drawn out process, and many hours go into making sure things get done the right way."

At the July 11 meeting of the County Commission, barely two weeks before Country Jam was to start, Bullock expressed concern that Live Nation hadn't yet delivered plans for a water system or a certified water operator and that only half of the proposed food vendors had filed applications. "Going to the 11th hour is not making me comfortable," she told the commissioners.

In 2014, the county began requiring that vendors prepare food in an enclosed space to protect it from dirt and dust and that their mobile kitchens be equipped with hot and cold water under pressure and waste water containment. That regulation emerged, Bullock says, after early concerts where "it was anything goes; it was such a disaster in terms of keeping food clean and safe" - creating both a safety hazard and a potential liability for the county.

Bullock says that this year, Live Nation ultimately met the county's standards.

The county also must provide for public safety. The Sheriff's Office pays overtime to deputies working the concert; deputies who are working regular shifts in the south end of the county are on call, as well. (Broadwater County also provides two deputies.)

While the concerts' contracted security companies provide routine on-the-ground services, deputies are there to "hopefully calm some of the excitement that emerges," Sheriff Tom Grimsrud says. "We respond to crimes against people" – mostly assaults or disorderly conduct. "A lot of that can be mediated out, and that's our goal. We want people to continue to have a good time and not go to jail." (Grimsrud said there were four arrests at this year's Jam.)

Deputies also administer breath tests to every attendee leaving the property - and ask inebriated concertgoers to stay put until they're sober. Grimsrud says the policy has reduced arrests for driving under the influence following concerts by 90%.

The work of Jill Allen, the county's weed coordinator, takes place before the event. "These concerts draw a bajillion people," she said. "We have campers, trucks, and side-by-sides over 300 acres. They're all potential vectors of spread" for noxious weeds, especially leafy spurge, spotted knapweed, and hound's tongue.

Allen inspects the concert site annually, works with the land owner, Audrey Acres LLC, to develop a plan for noxious weed control, and then makes sure the plan is executed properly. The bathroom areas are always a big focus: The foot traffic of thousands of port-a-potty visitors can easily disrupt and distribute noxious weed seeds already in the soil. "All [the weeds] need is a little encouragement," Allen says. "When you have that volume of people, it can be kind of a nightmare."

Is it worth the effort? Binkowski says the big concerts "are good for Jefferson County because people come in." Concertgoers may visit Lewis and Clark Caverns or the Pipestone recreation area while they're in the neighborhood. But the concert site is so far to the southeast, 19 miles from Whitehall and 44 from Boulder, "we're not sure about the actual economic impact," Binkowski says. "We can't say it's a major economic driver - but it's also not bad."