Summerfest

The organizers of Milwaukee’s decades-old Summerfest have dropped their trademark lawsuit against the Minnesota Twins over an upstart festival held in Minneapolis this summer under a similar name, after the team agreed to change the name.
Last month, the company behind the Milwaukee concert series accused the Twins of infringing its trademarks by launching TC Summer Fest, which kicked off July 14 with performances by Imagine Dragons and The Killers at the ball club’s Target Field in Minneapolis.

Summerfest, which launched in 1968 and calls itself “The World’s Largest Music Festival,” accused the Twins of picking the name to “piggy-back” on the success of the existing event. They pointed out that this year’s Summerfest in Milwaukee also featured a performance by Imagine Dragons.

But in a motion filed Wednesday in Wisconsin federal court, attorneys for Summerfest moved to voluntarily drop its lawsuit against the Twins. In a statement to Billboard, a spokesman for the Twins confirmed that a deal had been reached to end the case.

“The parties have reached an agreement that the Summer Fest name will not be used for the concert event in the future,” said Matt Hobson, a representative for the Twins. Lawyers for Summerfest did not return a request for comment.

Summerfest, which has featured performances by The Doors, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston, Prince and many other legendary acts, typically draws hundreds of thousands of concertgoers. This year’s event, running over three weekends from late June to early July, drew a reported 600,000 attendees to see Imagine Dragons, Zac Brown Band, Sheryl Crow and others.

Announced in May, TC Summer Fest was billed by the Twins as “The Biggest Rock Weekend of the Year.” According to the Star Tribune, the two-night event was partially organized by local promoter Jerry Braam, who had previously spearheaded a similar festival in the area called “Twin Cities Summer Jam.”

In June, attorneys for Summerfest’s parent company (Milwaukee World Festival) sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Twins, warning the team that they believed the new name infringed trademarks. They said they were prepared to “take appropriate measures” against “a clear attempt” by the ballclub to capitalize on a “well-known brand.”

On July 13, a day before TC Summer Fest was set to star, Summerfest made good on those threats, filing a trademark infringement lawsuit against the Twins and seeking an immediate injunction. They said the name of the Minnesota event was already creating “public confusion,” citing multiple media outlets that had allegedly mixed up the two fests.

“These instances are just some of the confusion that is occurring in the marketplace, confusion that the Twins is hoping to benefit from as they launch their inaugural music festival building upon the goodwill and reputation of the ‘Summerfest’ trademarks,” the lawyers for Summerfest wrote at the time.

The dispute was hardly the first for Summerfest. The festival’s organizers say they have sent 32 cease and desist letters since April 2022 to rival events that feature “Summerfest” in their names, and that 27 have either agreed to stop or agreed to pay royalties to the Milwaukee event.