Bluesapalooza expands

Just when you think they’ve maxed out at Sam’s Wood Site, they manage to push the fences out just a little bit further.

Mammoth Brewing Co. owners Joyce and Sean Turner announced this week that they’ve gotten the go-ahead to expand the site capacity for Sam’s Wood site by about 30% for this year’s festival.

The site expansion has correspondingly allowed the 18th annual Bluesapalooza and Festival of Beers to increase its ticket (people) capacity to 6,500, up from last year’s 5,500.

Which means, folks, that if you flaked this year and thought you didn’t buy a ticket in time … to the flakes belong the potential spoils.

All ticket types, including Saturday-only tickets, will likely be available as you read this.

A record 80 breweries are participating in the Festival of Beers. Another twenty breweries are on the waiting list.

The site expansion for the event will for the most part be to the north (towards the Village), inching up what the Turners have dubbed “Blanket Hill.”

As the Turners envision it, Blanket Hill will be a family type area for folks who want to spread out and relax and be a comfortable listening distance away from the speakers.

Alas, they admit, there will not be a Jumbotron feed from Blanket Hill showing live footage from the stage.

One advantage of the site expansion, according to Sean Turner, is that the food vendors will be moved closer to Minaret Road, opening up a wider channel for concert seating. There will also be two beer gardens which have seating.

Wood Site owner Sam Walker’s reported asking price for his four acres (the flatter, southern parcel where concerts and festivals are traditionally held) is $1.5 million an acre.

In Sean Turner’s perfect world, the Town would purchase the Wood Site as a permanent events venue, paying for it in part by auctioning off a transfer of zoned density to another North Village developer.

He also advocates turning the Town’s community center property into a parking lot and selling off the one acre of Town-owned property below the Westin (formerly targeted for a Village parking garage).

Turner said if the Town swings a deal for the property, he would donate $50,000 cash over five years to be designated for site improvements.