Last weekend’s nascent Minnesota Yacht Club Festival brought roughly 35,000 people to downtown St. Paul’s Harriet Island both Friday and Saturday. The event was well-reviewed from a music and sound standpoint. For most, the route into the festival passed through downtown St. Paul, and we wondered if festgoers opened their wallets for anything beyond parking.

The festival itself wasn’t cheap. One could buy tickets for Friday at the box office, but Saturday’s show sold out days in advance. Prices fluctuated, but $100 a day was a floor and VIP tiers went north of $300 a day. (There was little apparent online secondary market for tickets due to the need for a physical wristband to enter.) Yacht Club’s ‘90s acts were geared to a middle-aged crowd more likely to spend on premium attendance tiers that included places to sit and access to upgraded bathrooms and exclusive food and drink venues. The promoter, C3 Presents of Austin, Texas, (owned by Live Nation) puts on many large U.S. music festivals, including Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza in Chicago.

The food and beverage on offer often required long waits and was not served by notable local purveyors. Downtown St. Paul restaurateurs didn’t report much business during festival hours but saw crowds on the way in. “We had a solid Saturday,” reported Tim Niver, owner of Saint Dinette in Lowertown, a bit of a hike from Harriet Island. “Folks stayed overnight, and our pre-show brunch was banging. The town felt buzzy, visited, and finally occupied. A win, in my opinion!”

Niver notes Lowertown has become a “destination,” meaning much of his customer traffic is drive-in, not neighborhood, as it used to be.

The areas of St. Paul near Rice Park and the Xcel can be very lively October through March with concerts and NHL and amateur hockey, but summers can be another story, with Saints baseball a mile away being the only consistent draw. Fifth Street from Lowertown to Wabasha was mostly deserted both days. At Rice Park, things notably brightened.

“It was busier than the typical summer weekend,” recalled Gerry Goldfarb, general manager of the St. Paul Hotel, “two of our busiest nights of the year.” Goldfarb says the hotel increasingly relies on sports and entertainment, such as the previous week’s Earth, Wind, and Fire concert, to drive occupancy and restaurant patronage at the St. Paul Grill and breakfast restaurant The Drake. “We wish we had more people working downtown,” he notes.

The festival’s halo effect reached beyond downtown St. Paul. Graves Hospitality CEO Ben Graves says his company’s InterContinental Hotel at MSP Airport was sold out, as were his hotels in Minneapolis (Moxy Uptown and Downtown East, Downtown Residence Inn). “People travel to these events,” he notes. “Our local tourism has become increasingly event oriented. People are spending more on entertainment than at any time I can remember.”

Graves attended Yacht Club and described it as “well-run, other than the beer lines,” and is hopeful for a return engagement next summer. C3 Presents did not respond to requests for comment, post-festival.