200 artists, 700 sets: Here's how Appleton's Mile of Music came to be, and what keeps it in tune

APPLETON – It started as an idea to bring collaboration to downtown Appleton businesses.

In the fall of 2012, marketing executive Dave Willems left a meeting of local business owners, pondering an idea for a walkable event comparable to the city’s Octoberfest or weekly summertime farmers markets. As he walked down Appleton’s College Avenue, lined with storefronts of coffee shops, bars and restaurants, it struck him.

A music festival.

Partially inspired by Austin’s South by Southwest , which Willems had attended in its infancy years in the late ‘80s, the Appleton music festival would feature hundreds of acts across all sorts of venues.

“I thought, we can actually do this better in some ways,” Willems said.

In the more than 11 years since its inception, Mile of Music has become a staple of northeastern Wisconsin, and a unique destination many touring artists look forward to trips across the country. The four-day free festival annually brings between 80,000 and 100,000 attendees to a one-mile stretch of College Avenue.

“It's a crazy thing that they get Bonnaroo numbers in Appleton, Wisconsin,” said Jamie Kent, a Nashville-based musician who has performed at nearly every Mile of Music since the festival’s second year.

This year, Mile of Music will take place Aug. 1-4.

Willems calls it a festival of performers "who aren’t household names, but should be.” But it’s the community's hospitality and treatment of the artists that makes Mile of Music such a phenomenon.

“Mile of Music is a really unique thing where independent artists come in and feel famous for a weekend in Appleton,” Kent said.

When artists are accepted to play at Mile of Music, they are required to sign a contract promising they will play nothing but original music.

For many touring artists trying to make a living appeasing crowds, that’s a rare find. During Kent’s first time performing at Mile of Music in 2014, he was blown away by festival attendees’ commitment to learning his music ahead of his performance.

“I was a no-name musician at that time from western Massachusetts. And I came out and every room that I played that first festival was packed with people and they were singing my songs back to me,” Kent said. “And I was like, what's happening here?”

Willems said artists have described playing in Appleton as an “oasis.”

“It’s a space where they get to come to and they feel like they're embraced, and that we get what the hardship is for them when they're on the road and playing 15 shows and one of them might be in a space where half the crowd is playing billiards in the back of the room, versus coming into a space where everybody's locked-in to what they're doing,” Willems said.

There are no headlining acts, and most performers play more than once throughout the four-day festival — sometimes on an outdoor stage in front of thousands of people at night, and sometimes in a small coffee shop "listening room," where festival attendees are asked to stay silent and give artists their undivided attention. Around 200 artists and bands come and play a total of about 700 sets.

Inspired by the Mile of Music crowds, Kent released a song in 2023, titled “Famous in Appleton.” Included on the track are other musicians he met during his experiences in the Appleton music scene.

“It was almost shell-shocking, how much the listeners and the music lovers really respect the artists there,” Milwaukee-based singer-songwriter Laura Bomber, who was born and raised in the Fox Valley, recalled from her first Mile of Music performance in 2021.

Some of the fans are even almost famous themselves, Kent said — like Gary Barth, known around the festival as “Peaceman,” for his iconic tie-dye T-shirts and small pewter coins depicting a peace sign on one side and a heart-eyed smiley face on the other, which he hands out to people everywhere he goes.

A big music supporter, Barth attended his first Mile of Music in 2014. Since then, he has sponsored stages for multiple years — most recently on the Lawrence University Lawn, whose stage carried a tie-dye banner reading “Peace, Love & Good Vibes.”

“I love live music, and I just think this is the best music festival that I've ever been to,” Barth said. “And now I'm lucky enough to be part of it.”

Barth even has a tattoo of the Mile of Music logo on his arm, complete with a caption denoting Appleton, Wisconsin — for those who are not yet familiar with the festival, he said.

But it’s not only the supportive fans that give Mile of Music artists a taste of fame. A large draw for musicians is Mile of Music’s Artist Care Program , which provides them with not only meals and lodging, but also unconventional perks, like dental care, massages, chiropractor, hearing exams, eye exams and skin care checks.

In the last few years, two different artists had pre-cancerous skin growths flagged by a skin check, Willems said.

While the Artist Care Program is for all performers, the festival prioritizes giving health care perks to artists who don’t have insurance or regular access to a health care provider.

Funding Mile of Music's $2.6 million operating budget is a community effort. Willems' agency, Willems Marketing & Events , coordinates everything, with a team of eight people focused solely on the festival and other year-round music events. Around 25% of the budget comes from local and national business sponsors, while 15% comes from revenue made at previous Mile of Music festivals, through concessions, festival merch and vendor fees, Willems said. Other funding comes from individuals who pay for a "Music-Maker" subscription, in which they receive additional perks to the festival and year-round music events.

In 2021, festival organizers started the nonprofit organization Appleton Community Music , which allows people and businesses to make tax-deductible contributions that go toward the festival's budget — particularly for the Artist Care Program, housing and fees for artists and music education initiatives.

The operations have grown immensely from the festival's beginning, when the budget was around $1 million and there were no staff at Willems Marketing & Events dedicated solely to Mile of Music-related projects.

Mile of Music is also nearly entirely volunteer-run.

Kim Mauthe, a member of the Mile of Music team — and Willems’ daughter — is in charge of coordinating volunteers for the festival. Volunteers are recruited to do everything from pouring beers at the stages that are not run by local businesses, to helping artists check in to the festival, to serving meals to artists and crew members. Some of those volunteers are from community groups, and some are local fans of the festival, Mauthe said.

Local restaurants donate meals to artists — a total of seven meals during the Thursday-Sunday festival — and the Hilton Paper Valley Hotel in downtown Appleton provides rooms for performers, giving the hotel an "artist camp-type feel," Willems said. Some artists stay with host families in the Fox Valley community. Recently, the Mile of Music team has added a band apartment and a band condo, owned by local music fans, that are sometimes made available for performers who come to play shows in Appleton throughout the year, particularly at the Gibson Community Music Hall, which is operated by the Mile of Music team.

Peter Strand, an entertainment lawyer in Milwaukee who previously played in the band, Yipes!, which opened for big names in the late '70s and early '80s including Cheap Trick, Foreigner and Kansas, annually drives up to Appleton for Mile of Music. He said his favorite part of attending the festival is discovering new favorite bands.

“I gotta tell you, my 24-year-old self is extremely jealous of the artists that get to play Mile of Music, because it’s just a great community builder.”

Because all of Mile of Music's venues are within walkable distance and admittance is free, many people come for multiple days and hang around without a clear destination in mind. Most artists have more than one performace, scheduled at different venues and different days. Because of this, Strand said, it's not uncommon for music fans to bump into bands or performers on the street.

"When they're not performing, they're out and about and you may recognize the player that you saw the night before and just strike up a conversation, which is very cool," Strand said. "It's also great for the artists because it helps them build fanbase and connect with people."

The festival has continued to grow each year, as more musicians and fans have spread the word and sung its praises. Mile of Music has also been home to some artists that went on to become bigger names , including Sturgill Simpson, Milk Carton Kids, Langhorne Slim and Justin Townes Earle. Norah Jones even attended the festival as a supporting background vocalist in the festival's first year.

However, seeking out rising talent before they release chart-toppers is not the festival's main priority, Willems said. Mile of Music is about inviting fans to listen closely to musicians at all different points in their careers.

"If you look around at other festivals, a lot of the artists that we have playing are at the top of our poster, and go to other festivals, and they're at the bottom of those posters, those festivals. Is there really a festival that's totally dedicated to artists you don't know but you should?" Willems said. "That's when we decided, that's what we want to be."

Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com . Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @ArseneauKelli .

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: 200 artists, 700 sets: Here's how Appleton's Mile of Music came to be, and what keeps it in tune