Clarissa Kell | Daily Press Brian Whitens fixes the band tent at the location of the Woodtick Music Festival in Hermansville Thursday. Whitens “accidentally” started a musical tradition in the small-town area in 1994 that has grown into an annual festival people from all over enjoy.

HERMANSVILLE — What was supposed to be just a jam session among friends has grown over the years into what is now the Woodtick Music Festival. Despite how popular the music festival has become, the small-town feel of the annual weekend event in Hermansville remains intact.

Brian Whitens, who started it all in 1994, described the name of the festival as the Yooper version of Woodstock.

“People might not remember the ‘Northern Music Festival’ or something, but they remember ‘Woodtick,'” he said.

The Woodtick Music Festival is four days of country, rock, bluegrass, folk and more.

Twenty-five plus bands, with a majority being local, play on two stages starting Thursday night and ending Sunday night.

Whitens said the festival is always the first weekend of August, but that’s only been since it became an actual festival. When it was just a party among friends, it was just a one-day event that coincided with the first Green Bay Packers game.

“Ever since I accidentally turned it into a festival, its been the first weekend of August,” Whitens said.

It is a festival, obviously, but it still has a hometown, small-town feel and Whitens wants to keep it that way.

“I still like to think of it as a party, I guess,” he said. “That’s how it started and I still like to think of it that way. A party with more than one band, a party with a lot more jam sessions going on.”

From a garage party to a full-blown festival in a field with two stages and 400 campsites, the local music festival has grown, but most of the people who attend remain the same.

Whitens said out of the 400 campsites at the festival around 375 are people who come year after year — and that’s just the people who camp there.

He said a community was created within the festival itself and he wouldn’t trade his “woodtickers” for anything.

“I can’t even imagine a better crowd than the woodtickers that come here,” he said.

The bulk of the people who attend the festival are from the central Upper Peninsula area. Whitens said it is definitely now more than just a local event, but the majority of the crowd is still from the area between Iron Mountain and Escanaba.

He said one of the best parts to running the festival is witnessing people who may not have known each other otherwise become friends at the Woodtick.

When it comes to putting it all together, it is mainly a one-man show.

Whitens explained throughout the years the process has been fine-tuned so it really only takes one person to set it up, especially with the stages not having to be built and taken down every year. The stages are in their own trailers and just need to be folded up when done and hauled away.

Whitens added the job may only need one person, but more definitely helps. He said his wife, kids and buddies have helped over the years.

The Woodtick Music Festival is year-round work. Whitens works on it all year to get the festival running smoothly and the set up of the festival begins around mid-July.

All the hard work pays off come the first weekend of August, Whitens said.

He explained seeing a good group of people come together and have a great time listening to music makes it all worthwhile.

“It’s kind of a rush when it gets going. (It’s) neat to see it all come together when it finally happens,” he said.

For more information on the Woodtick Music Festival, check out its website at woodtickfestival.com.