Days after an electronic dance music festival rocked the lawn outside of Allianz Field in St. Paul, another festival promoter has approached the city with plans to host the “Forbidden Festival,” an eight-hour, 21+ college music festival featuring some of the same performers at the same location in September.
What sets the Forbidden Festival apart, according to its 23-year-old founder, who is an undergraduate at the University of St. Thomas, is that it will operate on only one stage, not two, and offer an eight-hour open bar.
Among Minnesota college students, “there’s no festival that unites everyone in one place,” said organizer Breno Bueno, who predicted some 4,000 attendees in a brief interview on Friday. “We’re having a fantastic line-up of local DJs. We got the main DJ that plays in (Twin Cities) clubs, who students already know — TimeToFly.”
Bueno, the founder of FBDN Ventures, applied to the city this month for a 90 decibel sound level variance from 2 to 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, a Saturday, with a sound check beginning an hour earlier. The Breakaway Music Festival, at Allianz earlier this month, had permission from the city for “97 decibels at 50 feet from all sound sources during the event hours.”
Bueno, who is Brazilian, said he is working closely with the Brazilian company GRPP Ventures, which has more than 30 years of experience in promoting club and concert experiences, the vast majority of which offer an open bar.
The Forbidden Festival, he said, will be no different, offering unlimited drinks to attendees, provided they’re not unruly or visibly intoxicated. As for noise concerns, “for every speaker that faces the crowd, we face one to the back so it cancels out,” Bueno said. “It’s the same wave, but inverse. It generates a cancellation. It’s the same technology the Apple AirPods use. We use that in Brazil.”
Bueno acknowledged on Friday that the “Forbidden Festival” will be a first for him, and a significant undertaking for one so young.
“I know it looks weird,” he said, with a small laugh. “I’ve worked in this field since I was 13 years old. I have more than 10 years of experience in this, and as an entrepreneur I have more than 10 years.”
Online marketing picks up
Bueno, who expects to graduate next May, previously founded and ran a company called “My Beauty Pass” for about a year and a half in São Paulo, Brazil. He also runs Kurz, a smartphone app that facilitates the collection of NFTs, or “digital collectibles,” according to his profile on the online platform LinkedIn.
His online marketing picked up this month, mostly via the social media platform Instagram.
“We’ve united with Allianz Field to transform it into the ultimate Forbidden Ground, where the magic will happen!” reads a social media post from the “Forbidden Festival,” which also promised “an eight-hour open bar” and “an epic line-up.” Besides TimeTwoFly, who also performed at last month’s two-stage Breakaway Music Festival at Allianz, the other DJs include the Brazilian DJ Deg, Zella, JBroadway, Noe and Z, who performed at Breakaway’s “silent stage,” which was accessed via headphones.
He’s marketed his “Forbidden Festival” on Instagram as “a revolutionary college festival in Minnesota, with the first-ever OPEN BAR! An emblem of freedom, Forbidden Festival is a dream for college students and a realm of unrivaled celebration. … Get ready for the BIGGEST OPEN BAR UNIVERSITY PARTY IN MN!”
He’s also promoting a sorority challenge, where the top five sororities selling the most tickets win 20 “VIP” backstage tickets to meet the performers. Tickets are being advertised from $140 to $70, and “to preserve the wonders of our planet,” patrons are asked to bring their own reusable cups from home or purchase a “personalized Forbidden Eco-cup.”
Events bring foot traffic to business corridor
Allianz Field opened in 2019 as a professional soccer stadium and the home of the Minnesota United, and some residents and business advocates have long waited for it to host other types of events and bring some badly-needed foot traffic to the visibly strained business corridor around Snelling and University avenues.
Still, the two-day Breakaway Music Festival on June 28 and 29 drew mixed reviews from St. Paul residents as far as Highland Park, as well as some suburban residents, some of whom said noise levels were so loud they assumed their next-door neighbors were hosting a party.
Breakaway organizers have said their electronic dance music blow-out drew 24,000 visitors, their best showing of the season to date, and they would re-examine sound levels, speaker direction and other details if they return next year.
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