“My wife and I are looking for something to rent the It’s Summertime in Northern Ohio. week of the Kid Rock Concert. August 28 and August 29 (for) two nights. HOPE you have something,” Tony VanDyke messaged St. Hazards Resort on Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie with exactly that — hope.
The reply, “Can you camp?” as in: Bring your own tent?
The 2019 Summer is here. Before anyone wished a 2018 “Happy Holidays” to friends, family, and colleagues the tickets had to have been electronically sent via StubHub or another major online concert ticket retailer.
“(This is) The biggest event the islands have ever seen. By far. The biggest event ever,” Tony White of Fremont, Ohio and manager of the Put-in-Bay Condos said with the conviction of a trial lawyer.
The headliner for the 2019 Bash on the Bay Music Festival was announced back in September. Those familiar with the islands had already made their reservations when the rumors of Kid Rock coming started to swirl in anticipation and excitement like rum, ice and daiquiri mix in a Vitamix on a sweltering summer day. All rooms, homes, and even boat slips dotting the Lake Erie Islands were spoken and paid for before season opened.
Susie answered the phone at the Middle Bass Island State Park Office when we called to find out if any of the island’s one hundred and ninety boat slips are available for the pre-Labor Day jam session. She solidified, “Not at all. We are totally filled up.”
The MBI State Park Marina is situated about ten minutes across the lake to access the Boardwalk of Put-in-Bay via boat. On the day of the Country Music Fest the idyllic Sonny S Ferry will be making the jaunt back and forth from The Boardwalk (Restaurant) to the Middle Bass Island dock from 11:30 am – 12 am.
The MBI State Park’s neighboring and only island resort, St. Hazards, has been booked for months. According to Patty Nixon who runs the restaurant and takes many of the reservations confirmed: all accommodations for Wednesday August 28 and Thursday August 29 (the day Kid Rock will take the stage) are full.
Plus the campsites are being claimed.
“We have, forty let me see…. oh my gosh, one person has four campsites, another person has three. This is how many sites we have booked: ten camp sites,” Nixon communicated while filling and carrying an ice bucket around the Caribbean-style restaurant.
“We have room for forty more tents,” developer and proprietor Ed Gudenas affirmed from his air-conditioned office hidden on the remote, eight hundred acre island.
Bringing a tent across the lake via the Miller Boatline and pitching on Gudenas’ twenty-one acre resort which includes the MBI Yacht Club Condos, Villas, Chalets and Camping Cabins is always the most economical way to experience the Lake Erie Islands and Boardwalk of Put-in-Bay.
Campsites are only twenty-seven dollars per night for one tent. There isn’t any tax and the rate includes two people. Each additional person is five dollars per night. This is a huge difference between the luxury of the MBI Yacht Club Condos and the Put-in-Bay Condos developed by Gudenas’ former business partner Paul Jeris. Both of these locations had units renting for four hundred dollars per night.
“For a Thursday,” White said. “They were all sold out in twenty four hours. Everything sold out. The mainland, too.”
It’s Summertime in Northern Ohio.
Concert tickets can still be purchased. Just click here. Just remember the only place to stay at this point in the season is at St. Hazards in a tent brought across the lake and pitched on the island.
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