MANSFIELD — Event organizers have called this year’s Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival the most successful edition yet.
The sold-out event welcomed 75,000 fans for three days of performances from 60 bands on multiple stages as well as appearances by more than 60 tattoo artists. Headliners included KORN, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed and Evanescence.
Lee Tasseff of Destination Mansfield said its estimated more than 50 percent of attendees came from outside the state.
Tasseff also shared that Inkcarceration has an economic impact of about $10.5 million on Richland County.
The festival took place at the Ohio State Reformatory, which was open for self-guided tours and a miniature version of Escape from Blood Prison.
Dan Smith, associate director of the Reformatory, said he believes Inkcarceration gets better every year.
“I think it’s one of these things that just continues to grow,” he said. “Everybody had a good time and it’s always good to bring people into the community and try to make an impact for Mansfield and Richland county.”
The weekend included several surprise moments for the audience, including Disturbed performing their just-released new track “Hey You” live for one of the first times. Lacuna Coil announced a remade 20th-anniversary edition of their album Comaliesand. Falling In Reverse offered a live debut of their new song “Voices In My Head.”
Festivalgoers also embraced the spontaneity on a series of slip and slides, undettered by the final day’s rain.
“It was an incredible weekend,” said Inkcarceration co-producer Daniel Janssen. “The fans even stuck with us in the pouring rain on Sunday, which shows their dedication to the bands and festival music scene.
“It took an enormous amount of work from the entire INK crew behind the scenes, but we are all thrilled that we were able to deliver a fun and safe event for the record breaking audience,” he added.
For many Inkcarceration team members, the work didn’t stop when crowds headed home.
“We have the majority of our operations team still on site to note all repairs that are needed,” Janssen said. “This year, we will have a lot more than normal maintenance that needs done due to the weather on the final day.”
Janssen said Inkcarceration hires cleaners, landscapers and excavators to ensure the sites are back to normal after the festival.
“For the landscaping and excavating needs we hire locally through the venue to get the work done which will be started over the next couple day and weeks,” she said.
A few miles to the west at the Richland County Fairgrounds, Inkcarceration cleaning crews spent the days following the festival resetting the grounds for another event this weekend.
Campsites at the fairgrounds were also sold out with approximately 4,500 campers.
Fair board President Jim Schaub said a crew of volunteers from the fairgrounds are also onsite. Post-festival clean up typically takes three or four days. Most of the work is emptying trash cans and dumpsters scattered throughout the grounds into 30 yard dumpsters.
“Usually (the Inkcarceration cleaning crew) does a pretty good job of cleaning up the grounds, picking up all the trash, but our crew will go back through and make sure everything’s clean,” he said.
Schaub said visitors for Inkcarceration are generally very respectful of the space.
“They are very, very considerate. That’s one of the best shows we have all year in terms of people being polite and considerate,” he said. “They leave the fairgrounds pretty much the way they found it.”
Schaub couldn’t say for sure how much the fairgrounds made from hosting Ink campers — those numbers are still being tallied.
“There’s a lot of costs involved but it goes back into property improvements that we make,” he said. “Everything goes right back into the fairgrounds for upkeep.”
Upcoming improvements at the fairgrounds include putting new roofs on Fairhaven Hall, the youth hall and the arts and crafts building.
“It’s been bid out, but we look for it to happen in the spring,” he said.
Missed our Inkcarceration coverage? Check out our on-the-ground reporting and photo galleries here.
