Elevation Group Makes Cleveland a Music Festival City

Cleveland may not have Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo or Coachella these days, but it does have its own two-day music festival, Wonderstruck, featuring major acts, held annually by Elevation Group.

Now in its seventh year, the festival features 26 bands and musicians headlined by Khalid, Walker Hayes, Nelly and Flo Rida. Other line-up highlights including Coyne, Jimmy Allen, The Struts and Ailey & AJ will also hit the stage at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland on July 8th and 9th.

For Elevation Group co-founders Denny Young and Steve Lindecke, the 2023 festival is the culmination of two decades worth of work building the company. Two of his former IMG executives spun off in 2002 to form a separate company, IMG. Since then, they have coordinated entertainment events such as Wonderstruck and NASCAR races.

Elevation Group has gradually built a portfolio of events, experiential marketing campaigns, musicians and has operated shows of all kinds for 20 years. All from our offices in Beachwood and most recently in Shagrin Falls. So what was it like to helm this entertainment empire?

“It was a lot of fun,” Lindecke says simply. “And I think it’s something that we’re very proud of.”

At Elevation you can always find something new to be proud of. This summer, the company is introducing another two-day Cleveland festival. It’s Victory Live, a revival of the former Northeast Ohio festival WMMS Buzzardfest, and his WGAR country jam in August. 4-5 respectively at Victory Park in Northridgeville. A collaboration between Elevation, Victory Park and iHeartMedia, the fest will be headlined by Incubus, Bush, Chris Young and Brian Kelly.

And, of course, the company’s other three two-day music festivals. WonderBus in Columbus (August 25-27), WonderRoad in Indianapolis (June 17-18), and WonderWorks in Pittsburgh (May 27-28). More will be added in the future.

“God willed, we hope to add more festivals in the future,” says Young. “Our philosophy has always been to have a festival of a certain size. We always felt that volume was better than clenching your teeth with just one event.”

(Photo credit: Mark Mindlin)

This is an approach that has worked for Elevation in a potentially turbulent industry. WonderStruck was a festival with a different name and location for his first four years. LaureLive was held at the Laurel School’s Butler Campus. After his successful four years at Laurel School, at the end of 2019, the festival announced a change of location to its new home at Lakeland Community College under the name ‘Wonderstruck’.

In January 2020, Laurel filed a lawsuit against Elevation Group, alleging that Elevation Group paid for the funds associated with the 2019 event deal. (“The only thing I can say about this lawsuit is that it was all very disappointing, but it was resolved amicably,” Young says.)

Just months later, while the Elevation team was busy preparing for the festival’s inaugural event in Lakeland, the coronavirus pandemic reached Ohio, canceling live events and suddenly taking a year off. I was.

“I don’t have a promoter in the world who says, ‘Hey, I have an idea. Let’s run a festival under a certain name, in a certain place, for four years.’ Let’s go find a new place and start over and take a year off,” Lindecke says bluntly. “It’s nothing short of amazing given what we’ve been doing and the fact that we’ve actually taken a step forward and are taking another step forward.”

With these waves swirling in the world of music festivals, leading to a drop in ticket sales in 2022, Young and Lindecke have changed course on their 2023 Wonderstruck line-up, moving away from their alternative and indie roots to pop and country music. and leaned. Young says the mix is ​​meant to appeal to a wider fan base.

“From a personal standpoint, alternative indie is definitely my favorite music and my life. But Cleveland is so much more,” says Young. “Cleveland has great support for country music, especially crossover country. It has a huge following for urban, R&B and pop.”

Wonderstrak is about to enter its third summer since the pandemic and may still be in a recovery phase, organizers say, but Young and Lindecke remain firm.

“It will take time, but I am confident that we will return to pre-pandemic numbers, and to some extent,” Young said. “We’re confident, but we’re not there yet.”

Tickets for Wonderstruck range from $69 to $150 for general admission ($299 to $499 for VIP) and can be purchased on the Wonderstruck website, wonderstruckfest.com.