Coventry, Vt., to get Phish show

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Phish has won permission to hold its first Vermont festival, in the Northeast Kingdom town of Coventry.

As many as 70,000 fans are expected to descend on the Newport State Airport in Coventry, which has a population of 1,000, for the concert August 14 and 15, the band said in a news release Tuesday.

Local business owners are already preparing.

“I plan on opening for 24 hours a day during that period, and I know other businesses in the area are going to do the same thing,” said Select Board Chairman Mike Marcotte, who owns the Jimmy Kwik store in town. “A few of my friends in business around here, they’ve already told their employees if this happens, there’s no vacations that week.”

Phish, which was formed in Burlington 20 years ago, has held six weekend festivals that drew crowds of between 50,000 and 70,000 in states including New York and Maine. According to the concert industry publication Pollstar, Phish was one of the top-grossing concert acts for 2003, with ticket sales earning $35.8 million.

That popularity is expected to be translated into profits for people in Coventry and in the path of the fans who stream in from neighboring states.

Farmers who own land near the airport have said they will plant grass instead of corn in adjoining fields to create a 350-acre campground. And business owners are already thinking about how to accommodate the crowds.

The concert permit from the Vermont State Police includes several conditions. Among other things, the promoter must show evidence there will be enough parking, and that the roads will be able to handle car and pedestrian traffic, said Major James Dimmick, the head of the state police field force division.

Dimmick said concert promoter Great Northeast had helped police estimate where fans will be coming from. Police have also talked to local officials in Maine and New York about the impact of recent summer festivals there, Dimmick said.

The band had considered other venues, including Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, where the band has played three times before.

The Phish concert will be the largest in Vermont since the Grateful Dead played in Highgate, another rural northern town, in 1995.