10,000 Lakes Festival

10,000 Lakes Festival (10KLF) was a four-day jam-band and bluegrass camping festival held each July from 2003 to 2009 at the 600-acre Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota -- the same grounds later used by the country festival We Fest. Multiple stages spread across the property, including permanent main and barn stages plus smaller campground stages, drew headliners such as Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, Wilco, String Cheese Incident and Trey Anastasio alongside a deep jam and bluegrass undercard. The festival built a following within the touring jam-band community for its rustic, communal camping culture in Minnesota's north-woods lake country.

Attendees consistently describe a friendly, communal camping atmosphere with an unusual degree of care shown for fellow campers, and single out the shower facilities and well-shaded, forested campgrounds as better than most festivals. Vehicle checks and entry into the grounds are reported as quick, and on-site food and drink were generally seen as affordable with short lines. Sound quality at the mostly-fixed stage setup also drew praise, since the speaker towers and stages were not portable rigs.

The final edition before the festival's hiatus ran July 22-25, 2009 and drew an estimated 17,000 attendees, close to the event's record, on the strength of headliners Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic and Wilco. Attendee recaps recall near-perfect weather and a friendly, well-staffed atmosphere, with set-time scheduling clashes the main gripe. Organizers and local press called it one of the strongest years the festival had put on, though it went on indefinite hiatus for financial reasons a few months later and has not returned since.