A labor dispute at the University of Minnesota has pushed Farm Aid organizers to consider either finding a new venue or canceling the charity concert planned next weekend at the university’s Huntington Bank Stadium.

Could the new home for the Sept. 20 event be Harriet Island Regional Park in downtown St. Paul?

When asked for a comment, Mayor Melvin Carter’s press secretary responded: “Thank you for your patience — we will be in touch.” She did not respond when asked about a timeline for further news.

Members of Teamsters Local 320, which represents 1,400 custodial, food service, maintenance and sanitation workers on campuses around the state, went on strike Monday. Union members seeking pay raises rejected a contract offer from the university.

Sarah Porrazzo-Davis, left, makes a fist toward a passing car that honked in support of striking University of Minnesota workers in Minneapolis on Wednesday. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)

Farm Aid staff were set to begin building the stage today for the concert featuring Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and a dozen other musical acts. But Thursday, organizers released a statement saying “our artists, production team and partners have made clear that they will not cross a picket line.

“The team that is scheduled (Friday) to begin building our complex stage and set is made up of loyal production people who have an ongoing relationship with labor across the U.S. They also will not cross a picket line. These decisions reflect our own values: the farm and labor movements are inseparable, and we believe strongly that the University must return to the bargaining table in good faith.”

The University of Minnesota responded with a statement that said it was highly supportive of farmers and values the mission and aim of Farm Aid. The university said it remains at the negotiating table and is waiting for Teamsters Local 320 to join.

“We have been engaged in conversation with Farm Aid for months and especially throughout this week. The decision about whether the event moves forward is theirs. It is not a University of Minnesota decision,” the statement read.

“The University presented a highly competitive offer to our Teamsters-represented employees, one that supports the important work they do and is financially responsible as a University.”

Looking at options

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Farm Aid organizers said they are currently looking at all options, including moving to a new venue. But they warned of possibly dire consequences if the charity is forced to cancel the event: “It is critical to understand that if Farm Aid 40 is forced to move or cancel, the financial impact could be devastating. The expenses already incurred to bring this historic event to Minnesota may well threaten the survival of our organization after four decades of service to family farmers.”

For previous concerts, Huntington Bank Stadium had a capacity of around 40,000. Two other stadiums in the metro with similar capacities are unavailable: Target Field has a Twins game on Sept. 20 and U.S. Bank Stadium is hosting the Vikings the following afternoon. Smaller St. Paul venues Allianz Field and Xcel Energy Center also have events scheduled.

Target Center has a Minnesota Lynx game on Sunday, but is otherwise open for the week leading up to Sept. 20. A spokesperson for the Minneapolis basketball arena did not immediately respond when asked for a comment.

Last year, Nelson performed at the Live Nation-owned Somerset Amphitheater in Wisconsin, which is located 30 miles northeast of St. Paul. Representatives from Live Nation did not respond when asked about the possibility of moving Farm Aid to the amphitheater or any other Live Nation venues in the region.

Harriet Island, meanwhile, hosted its first major pop and rock musical festival in a dozen years last year. The inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club Festival offered two days of music headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gwen Stefani and Alanis Morissette. It expanded to three days for its sophomore run in July and is set to return next summer. It was deemed a success by both organizers and the mayor’s office.

A hush will fall over the crowd on Sunday night at U.S. Bank Stadium, just before kickoff between the Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons.

The calm before the storm.

In that moment, Hall of Fame defensive end Jared Allen will raise his arms above his head, wait for that unmistakable beat to drop, then clap his hands together while more than 65,000 people join in unison.

“If somebody isn’t ready, for whatever reason, I promise they’ll be locked in after that Skol Chant,” safety Josh Metellus said. “It’s almost like a college feel because everybody in the building is doing it.”

As the tempo slowly picks up and the Skol Chant builds to a crescendo, Allen will put an exclamation point on the pregame ritual by sounding the Gjallarhorn from its permanent perch in the northwest corner of the stadium.

“There’s nothing quite like it,” edge rusher Jonathan Greenard said. “It really makes it feel like we’re about to go to battle.”

That type of reaction has always been the ultimate goal for vice president of content and production Bryan Harper. He has served in his current role with the Vikings for the past decade and takes immense pride in fostering an environment in the stands that provides an advantage on the field.

Where does the Skol Chant fall into that equation? It might be the most important part of an elaborate production that features everything from fake snow falling from the rafters to players running out of a tunnel shaped like a Viking ship that used to shoot fire before the NFL banned pyrotechnics.

Though the addition of the Skol Chant can be traced back to Sept. 18, 2016, when the Vikings were host to the Green Bay Packers in the first home game at U.S. Bank Stadium, the inception of the idea came a few months earlier — when Iceland upset England in the knockout stage of the 2016 European Championship to reach the quarterfinals of its first major international soccer tournament.

After bowing out in the next round, Iceland returned home to a hero’s welcome, greeted by more than 30,000 people that showed up in the capital city of Reykjavik to celebrate the accomplishment. A video clip of the celebration went viral on social media. It showed the crowd participating in something known in Iceland as the Viking War Chant, with everybody in attendance raising their arms over their heads, waiting the beat to drop, then clapping their hands in unison.

That sound familiar?

“We knew we had an opportunity to create a new tradition when we opened U.S. Bank Stadium,” Harper said. “That happened and it kind of smacked us in the face, like, ‘There it is.’ ”

As intrigued as the Vikings were immediately after seeing it, it was important to them that they didn’t rip it off. They wanted whatever they did with it to feel authentic at its core.

That prompted vice president of social impact Brett Taber to reach out to Football Association of Iceland on behalf of the Vikings. Eventually, Taber got in contact with team captain Aron Gunnarsson.

“It meant something special to us that it was coming from Iceland,” Taber said. “There was like a Viking heritage aspect to it.”

In the end, Gunnarsson gifted the Viking War Chant on behalf of Iceland, doing so with the help of professional powerlifter Thor Bjornsson, who has also starred as the Mountain in the HBO hit series “Game of Thrones.” A video clip of Gunnarsson and Bjornsson explaining the Viking War Chant was shown on the big screen at the first home game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“They were visible Icelandic figures that people might recognize,” Harper said. “The pride that they had in it was really cool.”

After making some subtle tweaks to make it their own, the Vikings rolled out the Skol Chant before kickoff. A number of team legends were at the epicenter of the spectacle, including quarterback Fran Tarkenton up in the stands and the Purple People Eaters down on the field.

“We knew the key was going to be how we launched it,” Harper said. “We knew if we got it right, it was going to something that we could build upon.”

It was a steady build from there as the Skol Chant started to become more and more ubiquitous across the state.

As much traction as it gained in the early stages, the defining stretch came roughly a year later when journeyman quarterback Case Keenum led the Vikings on a magical run that culminated with the Minneapolis Miracle.

“We started seeing it pop up everywhere,” Harper said. “You really started to see it take hold and we knew, ‘OK. This is going to last.’ ”

Asked if there is a specific Skol Chant that stands out above the rest, Harper and Taber both pointed to the immediate aftermath of the Minneapolis Miracle. There’s a memorable camera shot of Keenum leading the Skol Chant amid of the euphoria.

“He just started doing it by himself, and then the crowd started doing it with him,” Taber said. “That was when it it was like, ‘OK. This is never going to die. This is a part of who we are.’ ”

The momentum has continued over the past decade as the Skol Chant has taken on a life of its own. It’s commonplace for fans to greet each other on the street by raising their arms above their head and clapping their hands together.

“It has become this rallying cry synonymous with the Vikings,” Taber said. “That’s even more special than what it means inside of U.S. Bank Stadium.”

It still means something inside U.S. Bank Stadium, too.

“I’m extremely excited to get that Skol Chant going,” quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

It’s safe to say the Skol Chant has worked out better than anybody could’ve ever imagined.

“We hoped that it would turn into something like this,” Harper said. “Now we look at what it’s become and it’s like, ‘Wow.’ ”

What if Iceland never goes on that Cinderella run?

“None of this ever happens,” Taber said. “We never would’ve thought of it.”

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By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Republicans handed President Donald Trump a political victory Friday, giving final legislative approval to a redistricting plan that could help Republicans win an additional U.S. House seat in next year’s elections.

The Senate vote sends the redistricting plan to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe for his expected signature to make it law. But opponents immediately announced a referendum petition that, if successful, could force a statewide vote on the new map.

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Missouri is the third state to take up mid-decade redistricting in an emerging national battle for partisan advantage ahead of the midterm elections. Republican lawmakers in Texas passed a new U.S. House map last month aimed at helping their party win five additional seats. Democratic lawmakers in California countered with their own redistricting plan aimed at winning five more seats, but it still needs voter approval.

Each seat could be critical, because Democrats need to gain just three seats to win control of the House, which would allow them to obstruct Trump’s agenda and launch investigations into him. Trump is trying to stave off a historic trend in which the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections.

Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats. The revised map passed the state House earlier this week as the focal point of a special session called by Kehoe.

Missouri’s revised map targets a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching the rest of it into Republican-heavy rural areas. The plan reduces the number of Black and minority residents in Cleaver’s district, partly by creating a dividing line along a street that Cleaver said had been a historical segregation line between Black and white residents.

Cleaver, who was Kansas City’s first Black mayor, has served in Congress for over 20 years. He won reelection with over 60% of the vote in both 2024 and 2022 under districts adopted by the Republican-led state Legislature after the 2020 census.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — There still are no protocols for attorneys to get in touch with clients at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, and detainees are often transferred just before scheduled lawyer visits, according to new court papers alleging continued unconstitutional obstacles for meeting with legal representatives.

Thursday’s court papers were filed in response to a transfer from Miami to Fort Myers of the federal lawsuit claiming detainees have been denied private meetings with immigration attorneys while being held at the facility built by the state of Florida in the Everglades wilderness.

It also comes a week after a federal appellate court panel, in a separate environmental lawsuit, allowed operations to continue at the detention center by putting on hold a lower court’s preliminary injunction ordering the facility to wind down by the end of October. A third federal lawsuit challenging practices at the facility claims immigration is a federal issue and Florida agencies and the private contractors hired by the state have no authority to operate the facility.

“Detained individuals have a First Amendment right to communicate with their attorneys in confidence,” lawyers said Thursday in the legal rights case.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to omit information about detainees at the facility from its online locator system “so attorneys cannot confirm whether detained clients are held at the facility.” During videoconferences with their lawyers, detainees are placed in cages that aren’t soundproof with staff in earshot, and documents for clients are subject to review by staff, the attorneys said.

Unlike other detention facilities which don’t require prior appointments, at the Everglades facility, if lawyers want to meet in-person with their clients, they must schedule a meeting three days in advance. That gives the facility the opportunity to transfer out detainees, denying them legal access, they lawyers said.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration in late June raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by wetlands to aid President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people living in the U.S. illegally. Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups around the nation as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.

The center has been plagued by reports of unsanitary conditions and detainees being cut off from the legal system. Other states have since announced plans to open their own immigration detention centers.

As part of the legal rights lawsuit, the attorneys for the detainees want to make a visit to the facility in mid-October, but the federal and state government defendants said it wasn’t necessary. The detainees’ attorneys also asked for permission to keep their clients anonymous in public court filings and to use pseudonyms instead.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social