The Breakaway Music Festival will roll into the parking lots outside Allianz Field next month like a lamb and depart like a lion, gradually ramping up volume throughout two days of electronic dance music performances.
Facing criticism from residents from at least as far away as Lilydale that last year’s music festival got too loud for comfort, the St. Paul City Council voted 5-2 on Wednesday to accept a compromise proposal from event organizers, adjusting hours and maximum volumes to step up gradually throughout DJ sets on June 6 and June 7, a Friday and Saturday.
The latest plan — the fourth to be presented to the council in as many weeks — calls for nightly sound level limits at the main stage of 94 decibels at 3 p.m., 96 decibels around 4 p.m., 98 decibels at 5 p.m., and so forth, topping out at 103 decibels by 10:30 p.m., as measured at 125 feet from the speakers.
Organizers said speakers this year would be reoriented toward the soccer stadium itself, using Allianz Field as a noise buffer, and they will pay for city staff from the Department of Safety and Inspections to assist with sound testing throughout the event, among other efforts to mitigate noise.
“If it sounds good at 101 decibels at 9:15 p.m. we won’t crank it to 103,” said Jarrod Fucci, Breakaway Music Festival president, in a brief interview after the vote. “We’re stepping the sound as we go.”
Unlike last year, this year’s event won’t include a Thursday night sound check and will end at 10:30 p.m., 30 minutes earlier than previously proposed.
Those and other efforts won the favor of Council Members Matt Privratsky and Anika Bowie, whose wards both surround Allianz Field. Bowie had signaled support last month for a blanket sound level limit of 103 decibels but later changed course and called for a lower limit, under pressure from the Union Park District Council and other constituents, before working with Privratsky on the latest plan.
“The request for 103 decibels is not for them to be at that ceiling the entire time,” Bowie noted.
Organizers said they have already sold nearly 25,000 tickets across the two days of performances. “Any event like this is going to have some level of disruption,” acknowledged Privratsky, noting he lives near Allianz Field and welcomed the added vibrancy and tourism dollars.
DSI had recommended a lower sound limit of 100 decibels at 100 feet from the main stage. Not lost on some council members was that the music festival last year was approved for 97 decibels at 50 feet from a sound source but likely blew well past those limits, rattling windows down past Highland Park and into Dakota County.
Council President Rebecca Noecker and Council Member Cheniqua Johnson voted against the compromise proposal, noting previous events throughout the city had been limited to 90-100 decibels at 50 feet without issue.
The new limits are “higher than the entire Kellogg Bridge demolition,” Johnson said. “It’s higher than the Yacht Club Festival. … It’s not, for me, consistent with what has been done (before). Literally, the one thing that hasn’t changed is the sound, and that was the issue.”
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