Artist’s rendering
The Mill Group has asked the Village of Vicksburg to approve its Event Plan for a short series of summer concerts at The Mill in 2027. Since the plan became public, neighbors have asked good questions about parking, traffic, safety, cost and noise. Below are the questions we hear most, each answered from the Event Plan, the traffic and parking plan, the school parking agreement, and the PUD Development Agreement the Village and The Mill Group signed.
Cars expected at the school campus on a sold-out night. Its lots hold 1,932 at most.
Parking spaces the PUD requires for a sold-out night. The plan provides more, sold in advance.
Private security staff and sworn officers on duty each night. More than double the Luke Bryan concert in Richland.
Sound cap at The Mill’s property line, monitored in real time, with penalties paid to the Village.
These events are not being planned by volunteers or first-timers. The Mill Group has hired firms that manage traffic, crowds and security for some of the largest events in the world.
Plans event traffic and parking for the Super Bowl, the FIFA World Cup and Major League Baseball’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa. Wrote the parking, traffic and walking-route plan for The Mill.
Event security provider. Staffs the venue, the gates, the parking lots and the walking routes, with 154 security and management personnel each night.
Crowd-safety and emergency planners for major international events, including FIFA and Global Citizen. Responsible for evacuation, severe-weather and emergency plans.
Concert producer whose work includes Super Bowl halftime shows, Coachella, Glastonbury and the Grammys. Leads the stage, show and venue operations.
Global architecture firm behind arenas and event venues such as the Moody Center in Austin, The Star (home of the Dallas Cowboys), and the headquarters of the Los Angeles Rams in Woodland Hills. Guiding the design of the site plan in-step with the event operations team, including the parking areas and the access routes.
Sworn officers from area agencies, coordinated with Kalamazoo County Emergency Management and local law enforcement, staff traffic posts and the venue. First-aid stations, an EMS tent and staged ambulances are on site.
Quotations are word for word from the documents named. Highlighting is ours. Passage may be shortened.
Here are the real numbers. On a sold-out night, about 1,700 cars would park at the school campus, where the high school, middle school and administration building sit side by side. The rest park on The Mill’s own grounds.
The PUD sets the parking math: one space for every four guests. A sold-out night of 9,999 guests needs 2,500 spaces. The plan provides more than that, spread across The Mill’s south lawn and the Vicksburg Community Schools campus: the middle school, the high school and the administration building.
The campus lots and fields together hold up to 1,932 cars. With 2,500 spaces needed and 801 of them on The Mill’s south lawn, roughly 1,700 cars would park at the campus on a sold-out night. On the warm-up night, or any night that does not sell out, the number is lower.
That means several thousand guests walking to and from the campus on a full night. That is exactly why the plan gives them their own lit, staffed walking lane, separated from traffic, instead of sending them down sidewalks and past yards. Question 3 describes how it works.
Parking is sold in advance through The Mill and tied to a specific lot, so we know how many cars are headed to each lot before anyone leaves home. Staff park separately, at Sunset Lake Elementary and other staff lots, so they do not take guest spaces. There are no shuttle buses. The walk from the school lots is under a mile, about 10 to 15 minutes, on a protected route described in Question 3.
There will be no concerts on football nights. The concerts run from late May to mid-August, before football season. The parking agreement bars any concert night that conflicts with a district event, athletic contest or graduation already on the school calendar.
The concert series does, not the taxpayers. The school district is paid a license fee for every night it hosts parking. On top of that fee, the event provides, at its own cost, the parking attendants, security, lighting for lots and walkways, portable restrooms and trash cans, removes everything by noon the next day, and repairs any damage caused during the event. The district and the Village are both named on the event’s insurance. School buildings stay closed, and there is no alcohol, tailgating, camping or amplified sound on school property.
The PUD the Village approved already answers this. It allows off-site parking for events, as long as the property owner signs a written agreement and that agreement goes to the Village. The school parking agreement is exactly that. The Mill Group is also preparing additional parking on its own land west of The Mill.
The school district controls its own property. The parking agreement was written to protect the district, and it is tied to the Village’s approval of the Event Plan.
Where guests park
Guest parking capacity by location, against the PUD’s 2,500-space requirement for a sold-out night
| The Mill’s south lawn (general and VIP) | 801 |
| School campus: middle school 1,280, high school 582, administration building 70 | 1,932 |
| Total guest spaces | 2,733 |
Staff parking at Sunset Lake Elementary and The Mill’s north lot is separate. In wet weather, grass areas come out of the count and advance sales are adjusted. Source: Gensler parking totals, October 6, 2026.
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(5)
For events in which more than 3,000 attendees are anticipated, a minimum of one parking space for every 4 anticipated attendees is required. Parking is permitted on or off premises … Developer shall provide a signed agreement with any property owner(s) providing such off-site parking to the Village.
Metropolis Traffic, Transport & Parking Plan · October 2026
… a park & walk transport solution with ADA/Mobility Assistance available parking on site … 9,999 fans/guests divided by 4 passengers per vehicle …
School parking license · Paragraph 4
… one (1) hour before the Venue gates open until two (2) hours after the concert ends.
A maximum of 9,999 guests means about 2,500 cars, spread across several lots and several exits, directed by a professional traffic plan and sworn officers at every key intersection.
Metropolis designed the traffic plan using the same tools it uses for the Super Bowl:
The plan estimates that cars clear in about an hour when 2,500 spaces are in use. Departures stagger naturally, because guests walk 10 to 15 minutes to their cars instead of all pulling out at once. The plan calls for no permanent road changes.
Metropolis is building the train schedule on the tracks north of The Mill into the plan. Traffic leaves in several directions, so a passing train slows one route, not the whole exit. Emergency vehicles have their own access route that is kept clear at all times.
Vicksburg already welcomes crowds in the thousands for the car show and Christmas in the Village, without a professional traffic plan. These concerts will have one, and the PUD requires post-event reviews with the Village so anything that needs fixing is fixed before the next show.
Event Plan Supplement No. 1 · October 7, 2026
… approximately one hour or slightly more when 2,500 parking spaces are in use …
Letter to the Village · October 7, 2026
The Metropolis plan manages event traffic through traffic control officers, advance parking sales, and assigned routes, which is the accepted approach for temporary events and does not call for permanent roadway changes.
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(7)(b)
Within the earlier of ten (10) days after the event … Developer and the Village agree to meet to evaluate the success of the event and any failure to comply with the approved Event Plan … along with necessary improvements to ensure that future events comply …
Guests walk on lit, staffed route to their cars, with restrooms and trash cans along the way and cleanup crews behind them.
Walkers between the school campus and The Mill use W Avenue. On show nights its westbound lane closes to cars and becomes a walking lane, separated from traffic by water-filled barriers. The plan sends no concert walkers through the southwest neighborhood or the neighborhood east of the creek. The Mill Group owns most of the homes on the north side of W Avenue along the route.
Temporary light towers line the walking routes and the parking lots after dark. Security staff are posted along the entire route, and the school lots have their own attendants and security until the last car leaves.
The venue has 190 restroom stalls, and the school lots have portable restrooms of their own. The plan calls for at least 50 trash and recycling stations inside the venue, with more at every entrance and exit, in the parking areas, and along the walking routes. Roaming crews clean during the show, and the venue and parking areas are cleaned after each event.
Beer is sold only inside the fenced venue, under a special license held with a local nonprofit partner. It is not part of the downtown social district. There is no alcohol and no tailgating at the school lots, and security enforces that.
The PUD requires amplified music to stop by 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, with penalties paid to the Village for running over. Our production team plans to finish at 10:45 p.m.
Luke Bryan’s 2019 Farm Tour concert at Stafford Farms in Richland Township was planned for a crowd of up to 20,000, with about 70 officers and no private security. The Mill’s plan staffs 154 private security and management personnel, about 20 sworn officers on site, and about 26 more at traffic posts. That is roughly 200 people keeping guests and neighbors safe, more than double, for a smaller event.
Letter to the Village · October 7, 2026
… 154 private security and management personnel plus approximately 20 sworn officers, and approximately 390 feet of egress width.
Event Plan Sheet SITE-03 · Refuse Plan
… a minimum of 50 paired trash and recycling stations … Additional collection stations will be provided at each entrance and exit, throughout the parking areas and along the principal pedestrian routes between the parking areas and event site … Dedicated roaming cleanup crews … followed by complete post-event collection, removal and site cleanup.
Event Plan Supplement No. 1 · October 7, 2026
After each event, waste and recycling are collected, the event site and parking areas are cleaned …
No. The Mill Group pays for the concert series, including the Village’s own costs of reviewing it.
Nothing about the concert series requires the Village to raise taxes. The money flows the other way: to the school district, to local nonprofits, and to the businesses where visitors eat and shop.
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(7)(e)
… Developer is responsible for the actual costs (including any attorney and consultant fees) the Village incurs in its review of Event Plans …
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(7)(d)
… liability insurance of not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence … arising out of any event up to 9,999 anticipated attendees … The insurance policy must name the Village, including its agents and representatives, as an additional insured.
Response to Village planner comments · October 7, 2026 · Utilities and groundwater
No new or extended utilities … Restrooms are portable units … potable water is brought to the site; and event power is temporary. … Restroom waste is contained and hauled off site.
No. This is five summer nights, set up and taken down within weeks, so that an empty mill can come back to life.
The Mill sat empty for years. The brewery, hotel rooms and restaurants planned inside it only work if people will travel to Vicksburg. The concert series is how we show that they will. Its success is what supports the investment inside the buildings.
Visitors eat, shop and stay in town. Local school teams and community clubs will be paid to help staff parking. Beer sales run through a local nonprofit partner. And Vicksburg already knows how to welcome a crowd: the car show, Burg Days and Christmas in the Village draw thousands every year without changing who the town is.
Vicksburg should stay Vicksburg. A few summer concerts give people a reason to discover the town, and a reason to come back.
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(7)(c)
… Developer agrees to put on events at the Property in the below listed sequence – moving from a smaller-sized event to a mid-size event to a Large Event …
Developer must demonstrate compliance with the applicable approved Event Plan for an event of each size before Developer can put on an event of the next larger size.
No. The Mill Group owns fewer than 10 of Vicksburg’s roughly 100 commercial properties. And the Village sets the rules and has the final say.
Vicksburg has roughly 100 commercial properties. The Mill Group owns 8 of them: the Mill itself, and 7 buildings in the downtown core, where there are 52 commercial buildings in all. More than 90 percent of the Village’s commercial property belongs to someone else. Almost all of the buildings we bought were empty and decaying when we bought them.
The Village Council approved The Mill’s Planned Unit Development by a 7–0 vote, and the Village and The Mill Group signed a Development Agreement that lists outdoor events, music and festivals as permitted uses. That Agreement also spells out how an Event Plan is reviewed. Asking the Village to apply its own agreement as written is not telling the Village how to operate.
The Village keeps real control at every step:
Like any property owner in Vicksburg, The Mill Group follows the same Village ordinances as everyone else.
Every step is public. The Planning Commission takes up the site plan, and the Village Council takes up the Event Plan, in open session.
PUD Development Agreement · Section E
… b. Indoor and outdoor event spaces offering a diversity of activities, including … music and entertainment performance, sports, cultural and art events, festivals … Events which utilize offsite parking will require approval of the Village subject to Section F(7) below.
PUD Development Agreement · Section R
This Agreement may not be modified … without the prior written consent of the Village Council and the Developer …
The Mill’s concerts are held to a hard sound cap at the property line, measured in real time by independent monitors, with automatic penalties paid to the Village.
We cannot speak for other venues in the area. What we can say is that The Mill’s limits are not a promise or a guideline. They are terms of a signed agreement with the Village, with independent monitoring and automatic penalties.
PUD Development Agreement · Section F(6)
Decibel levels from the programming of amplified sound (e.g. concerts, performances, etc.) … shall not exceed 80 dBA at any perimeter property lines. … all amplified sound programming or other sources of excessive sound must stop from 10:00 pm to 9 am Sunday through Thursday and 11:00 pm to 9 am on Friday and Saturday. … If excessive sound continues after the hours defined above, Developer shall pay to the Village a penalty of $2,500 per daily overage from one to 30 minutes, and $5,000 per daily overage of more than 30 minutes.
To monitor compliance with these requirements, Developer shall install decibel level monitoring systems as directed by a third-party sound/acoustic industry expert … to ensure an accurate reading in real time of the noise being generated at all perimeter property lines.
The question before the Village is how these events will operate, not whether they can happen. Every part of that review is public, and we welcome your questions along the way.
The Mill Group presents the Event Plan to the Village Council.
The Planning Commission reviews the site plan.
The Village Council votes on the Event Plan.