Deal Struck To Keep Electric Forest In Rothbury For 10 Years

AEG Live, the organizers of Electric Forest, have struck a deal with The Double JJ Ranch to keep the long-running event in Rothbury, MI for the next ten years as per MLive. The deal was confirmed to MLive on Tuesday by one of the principals of The Double JJ Ranch’s ownership group, Antler Bar Amusements LLC, Norm Halbower.

Antler Bar Amusements LLC wound up sealing the deal with AEG Live after The Double JJ Ranch’s previous owners were unable to meet conditions of a court order that would’ve allowed them to reclaim the Ranch, which has hosted Electric Forest each year. Over 35,000 festivalgoers attended the 2014 installment of Electric Forest in June, which featured performances from the likes of String Cheese Incident, Umphrey’s McGee, STS9, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Cut Copy.

Halbower told MLive that preparations are already underway for next year’s festival, “I can assure you that there will be a festival next year. Part of my reasoning is they have had representatives going through our forest checking trees and doing preliminary stuff like they do every year.” Antler Bar Amusements has already invested $2.4 million on upgrades at The Double JJ Ranch according to MLive including “new roofs, upgraded rooms, new flooring and cabinets at Back Forty cabins, and upgrades to the water park.” Halbower does warn that the only potential issue which could derail future Electric Forests at the Rothbury site is the loss of support from the local township board. However, the Grant Township Board has been behind the festival since 2011 and Halbower doesn’t see that changing.

[via MLive]