The opening of the Minnesota Yacht Club, the new music festival in St. Paul, went smoothly.

Liz and Tom Glenn knew how to plan a full day at a major music festival with their children.

The Shoreview family arrived at the first Minnesota Yacht Club Festival on Harriet Island in St. Paul on Friday with a blanket, a stroller and other parenting supplies like the Tushbaby, a fanny pack that a parent can strap on and hold their child in front of them while dancing.

And that’s exactly what Liz did with 7-year-old Vera during “Michigander,” the favorite performance of 4-year-old Zander, who studied the Kalamazoo-based indie rock group on YouTube.

“This is her first concert,” said 42-year-old Liz, whose first festival was Lilith Fair in the 1990s.

Minnesota Yacht Club is the first music festival since 2012 on Harriet Island, which has a long history of such events as Riverfest and Taste of Minnesota.

But as its elitist name suggests, the Minnesota Yacht Club (MYC) was a world-class venture—from multi-layered electronic bracelets to river cruises—presented by Atlanta-based C3, which produces Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.

“They do great events. They’re perfect,” says Jay (J-Bird) Cook, who co-organized the Soundset hip-hop festival in the Twin Cities from 2009 to 2019. He came to the MYC with his wife and daughter to see Joan Jett, “one of my childhood favorites.”

’90s stars like Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani drew a crowd of 34,000 on Friday, most of them between the ages of 45 and 60 (Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Offspring are scheduled for Saturday). There are two stages facing each other, with about a minute passing between when one stage ends and the other begins.

Greg Pilkington, 61, of Salt Lake City was disappointed that the Black Crowes, the band he most wanted to see, canceled Thursday night because of illness. But otherwise he was impressed.

“It’s well thought out,” said the New Orleans Jazz Fest regular. “The food was OK, better than most festivals, but not as good as Jazz Fest.”

He added that the video screens on the two stages were “small for a venue of this size.”

The good thing about it, several festival-goers mentioned, is that you can stay in one place and still see the other stage, even if it is a few football fields away.

Chris Foley, 53, of Dayton, was impressed by “the infrastructure they have. I thought they weren’t investing enough money. The sound is so good we could hear it all the way to the St. Paul Hotel. And the dealers are set up so people can spend their money as quickly as possible.”

Some festival-goers in the long lines might disagree. A bearded man was about fortieth in line at the mocktail stand. “It’s either that or stay sober,” he said, declining to give his name. But he had already done his good deed for the day by volunteering to fill a large garbage bag with empty cans in exchange for a free festival t-shirt.

Of course, he could have paid $40 for the shirt at the merch tent, where there were special express lanes for Chase cardholders and VIP ticket holders.

Paxton Schenck, 14, of Woodbury, tapped her feet to Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You” in the VIP stands.

“It’s really cool,” she said. Her only concert so far, she said, was with Katy Perry.

But she and her aunt, Elizabeth Hjelmen, 43, of Minneapolis, wanted to go down to the field to get Stefani closer to the stage. A good move, because Stefani’s husband, country superstar Blake Shelton, was accompanying her on “Purple Irises.”

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter greeted the crowd before Stefani took the stage at dinner time. He asked for a round of applause for all of the St. Paul employees who helped make the festival run smoothly in a city park and praised the partnership with C3 organizers.

“If you want to come back next year,” Carter said, “make some noise.”

The crowd roared back.

Several long-time festival visitors had suggestions for next year.

“They need more seating for VIPs,” said Amy Ross, 65, of Albuquerque, NM. “Tickets for a two-day festival aren’t cheap – $675. There’s a lot of money to be made selling chairs.”

Wearing a Joan Jett & the Blackhearts T-shirt, 67-year-old Mike Latour of Minneapolis, a veteran of Coachella and Lollapalooza on Harriet Island in the ’90s, wishes Jett’s performance had lasted longer than 60 minutes.

Corey Baesler, 28, of Minneapolis said MYC is “not as cool as Bonnaroo, but better than Warped Tour or We Fest. I would recommend having people bring camping chairs.”

Since blankets were allowed, all festival-goers had to do was plan ahead – like the Glenns did. They arranged for Grandma to pick up the kids around 6:30 p.m. so Mom and Dad could come back for the last four hours of music.