Madison’s annual “World’s Largest Brat Fest” will kick off with a bang – and a ton of funkiness – tonight with opening headliner George Clinton, “The Godfather of Funk” and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The four-day event will run through Memorial Day on Willow Island at Alliant Energy Center and feature four musical stages and over 100 bands. It’s a massive event that takes about a week to set up, but once upon a time, it was just a really small get together.

“It all started out really small 34 years ago in front of my father’s grocery story – Metcalfe’s Market. It started with a 22-inch Weber grill, a table and three chairs. It was just a way for him to say ‘thank you’ to his customers,” says Tim Metcalfe, president and owner of Metcalfe’s Market and organizer of the “World’s Largest Brat Fest.” “Every year, it just got a little bigger and a little bigger. Fast-forward to 34 years later and we have all of these family-fun activities. We have four stages with incredible music.

“We’re still selling brats and we’re still selling Pepsi like at that very first Brat Fest and it’s still free,” he adds.

The “World’s Largest Brat Fest” has become a Madison Memorial Day Weekend staple. In 2005, Brat Fest was relocated from its Hilldale Mall location, which had grown too small for the crowds, to Willow Island at the Alliant Energy Center where it has been since. In 2011 and 2012, Brat Fest was recognized by Parade magazine as one of the top festivals in the United States.

“The people that actually put Brat Fest on are all charity organizations that volunteer their time,” Metcalfe tells Madison365. “There’s over 105 of them and many of them have been working 10-20 years at Brat Fest raising money for their organizations. Their members volunteer their time during the Memorial Day Weekend and then their organizations earn money from that.”

Each year 3,200 volunteers donate 16,495 hours of their time at Brat Fest. In return they earn $8 per hour, which is donated back to their charity of choice at the end of the event.
Each year 3,200 volunteers donate 16,495 hours of their time at Brat Fest. In return, they earn $8 per hour, which is donated back to their charity of choice at the end of the event.

Last year, the 105 organizations earned about $150,000 at Brat Fest. “That’s a lot of money going to these great organizations in Dane County that are making the community better every day,” Metcalfe says.

Metcalfe has been busy all week overseeing the set-up of the event, which is quite an ordeal in itself.

“Every year on Friday it starts at 6 a.m. in the morning with ‘Take Your Brat to Work Day’ here on Willow Island. That goes until 10 a.m. and we usually sell about 19,000 brats in a few hours which is incredible,” Metcalfe says. “That starts off our Friday and then we go right into Bratfest after that.

“New to Bratfest this year is Laser Tag, and that will be free to go in with your family or your team,” he adds. “We also have human foosball, which is also new this year. We have two rinks set up. Then we have a really phenomenal Kids’ Zone with bouncy houses and face painting and a petting zoo.”

The kids’ stuff is great, but when people think of Brat Fest, they think of music. There will be four stages of music this year kicked off with Friday’s opening night headliner being George Clinton, who revolutionized R&B during the ’70s, twisting soul music into funk by adding influences from several late-’60s acid heroes like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Sly Stone. Clinton has received a Grammy, a Dove (gospel), and an MTV music video awards, and has been recognized by BMI, the NAACP Image Awards, and Motown Alumni Association for lifetime achievement. Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

One of the Brat Fest music stages
One of the Brat Fest music stages

“He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he is like the inventor of funk music,” Metcalfe says. “They call him the King of Funk and he will be coming with a 17-piece band and it will be just an incredible show. And it’s all free!”

Other headlines include Everclear, a rock band formed in Portland, Oregon in 1992 best known for their radio hits spanning more than a decade and Madison County, a seven-piece country show band, based out of Madison, that has evolved its high-energy engaging show, over the years, to stay fresh and unique.

“Joe Diffie will be the headliner on Monday and is a Grammy and an Academy award winner,” Metcalfe says. “He’s been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for over 20 years. He is quite the legend in country music.”

Clyde Stubblefield receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at last year's Brat Fest.
Clyde Stubblefield receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at last year’s Brat Fest.

All of the musical acts at this year’s Brat Fest are too numerous to mention, but you can find them here. Metcalfe is hopeful people will buy a beverage and a brat along the way because that’s what pays the volunteers and for all the overhead and helps raise money for the non-profits. That is also what is truly unique about the “World’s Largest Brat Fest” – how much money that it raises for charities and non-profits.

But is it really the “World’s Largest Brat Fest”?

I let Metcalfe know that I was born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which, without bragging too much, is known as the Bratwurst Capital of the World. They have their own annual Sheboygan Bratwurst Days celebration that is also pretty large and formidable.

“They have an incredible event over in Sheboygan. Johnsonville supplies their brats, too, I believe,” Metcalfe says. “Fifteen years ago we got done with an event and we asked our supplier: ‘We just got done selling 54,000 brats … is that a lot?’ And the guy said, ‘That’s more that Oktoberfest in La Crosse, that’s more than Sheboygan Brat Days. That’s more than County Stadium. That’s more than any Lambeau [Field] event. We think that you guys are constantly the world’s largest brat fest.’”

The next year they changed the name to “World’s Largest Brat Fest.” “When we really started to count, people really took ownership of the brat record,” Metcalfe remembers. “So we went from 89,000 [brats] to 121,000 to 134,000 to 154,000 to 189,000.”

In 2010, Brat Fest set a new “self-proclaimed” world record by selling 209,376 brats during the four-day festival to truly stake their true claim as the “World’s Largest Brat Fest.”

“After that year, we added corn on the cob as an option and it’s been hard to reach that number again,” Metcalfe laughs. “We haven’t been able to break the record since then, but we still have hope. If we can get a perfect weekend this weekend, that’s what we are shooting for.

“But it’s now much more than counting brats and breaking records, it’s about raising money for charities that donate their time to help put it on and, at the same time, getting together as a community to celebrate,” Metcalfe adds. “We’ve all been cooped up as a community over winter and just lately this week with all of this rain and cold weather. This Memorial Day Weekend has a great forecast and it can be an opportunity for all of us to break out together. Hopefully, they all come to Bratfest.”