How to earn a free Rothbury ticket

ROTHBURY, Mich. (WOOD) - Festivals such as Rothbury can be pricy. Most tickets for this year's event were about $250. Which is why some choose to get their tickets for free.

Sort of.

It's called the Green Team, powered by The Spitfire Agency. Festivalgoers have the opportunity to sign up online and work off the cost of their ticket. It's a work-exchange program.

Sign-up has to be done in advance. But here's the scoop: You buy your ticket from a special section on the Rothbury Web site fronting the entire $250. This year, you had to be age 18 by July 1 to qualify. You submit the three artists or bands you want to see the most, and the agency assigns you to three shifts that avoid those three performances. Shifts are five to seven hours long.

People are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. The schedule works out so that everyone gets one of the festival days off.

If you check in promptly and stay throughout the duration of each assigned shift, Spitfire will reimburse you the $250 immediately, and you will have worked off the ticket.

Kyle Beattie, of St. Clair Shores, paid for a ticket to last year's festival and regretted it. He had friends who were on the Green Team, and said he ended up hanging out with them while they were working almost the entire time.

So this year, the 18-year-old figured he might as well join, too.

"I'll never pay for a festival ever again," Beattie said.

On Sunday morning, he was walking through the media tent, collecting recyclables and trash off abandoned tables. Of all his shifts, this one might be his least favorite, but still, it's nothing to complain about.

Beattie worked in Artist Relations on Saturday, stocking tour buses, food and liquor.

"It was kind of wacky, one band ordered like, 10 different kinds of (bottled) water from all over Italy," he said.

Thursday was his day off. The performances he has enjoyed the most?

The Dead.

"And I'm really looking forward to Dylan," he added.

But some of the jobs are less glamorous than stocking artists' tour buses.

Ben Clampit, 21, was working a waste station Friday during the second set of String Cheese Incident.

Many Green Team volunteers are in charge of waste stations. Every time on the Rothbury grounds you see a garbage can, there are two others just like it. A blue sign above the can designates that it's for mixed recycling, such as plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Green signs are for cans that take compost, such as paper products and food containers, and red signifies landfill cans - for things like coffee-cup lids and candy wrappers.

A large number of Green Team volunteers are assigned to the stations to help the public understand which items go in what cans and why.

Rothbury prides itself on being environmentally friendly, and changing the atmosphere of festivals, which is why so many volunteers were on waste-station duty.

Clampit didn't mind. With String Cheese Incident not far away, he said although it was a job, it didn't feel like work.

"And it's totally worth it," he said.

Clampit, of Clinton, is a student at Western Michigan University, studying aviation. As a student, the work-exchange program helps financially.

And the time goes by fast, too, he said. Having shows nearby definitely helps.

Beattie agreed, saying his six-hour shifts have flown by. Plus, he was able to schedule his shifts with his friends.

His schedule: Working 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

"And (I) wake up early anyway because it's so hot in (my) tent," Beattie said.