- February 18, 2026
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At 2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, Winter Garden Parks and Recreation Director Laura Coar, Recreation Manager Jackie Mathis, Parks Manager Ricky Reynolds and their team will implement a plan that has been a year in the making.
A team of at least 300 people, of which at least 260 are volunteers, will disperse throughout downtown Winter Garden.
Every cone and barricade placement, the number of trash cans, where each volunteer needs to be and their responsibilities, the location of the stages and which musical artist or band will perform where and at what time has been thought through months in advance.
The various Winter Garden departments from police and fire to parks and recreation to facilities and public services all are ready to produce Music Fest, which draws more than 40,000 people throughout a 12-hour period to Plant Street and the surrounding areas to listen to 32 bands and musical artists perform.
It’s a mighty team of at least 40 city employees, with Coar and Mathis at the head, spending countless hours to ensure the event goes off without a hitch.
“Although we’re lean and small, everybody on staff is amazing, wonderful, and that makes a difference,” Coar said. “You can do more with less when you’ve got really good people.”
The goal for Coar and Mathis, though, is for no one to realize the amount of work it takes to make Music Fest a reality because it’s a seamless day filled with music, fun, smiles and laughter.
Planning for Music Fest starts the Monday after the previous year’s day of concerts.
Coar and Mathis will gather to discuss what went well, what needs improvements, potential changes and more.
The duo are the logistical brains behind the merry-go-round of concerts happening all at once for nearly 12 hours.
They have thought of every aspect of the festival — from bathroom and no-parking signs to marketing to the number of barricades and traffic cones needed to the timing of when vendors arrive and where they go to the exact placement of stages throughout downtown Winter Garden.
Coar and Mathis create a script, much like a movie, that details the timing and actions of Music Fest.
The script entails what departments are needed where and when, detailing specifics including how many traffic cones need to be placed on Dillard Street to when vendors will be allowed in what point of entrance to the festival. The script also includes several maps such as a map for barricade locations, a vendor map and access maps.
The collaboration among the departments is key to the event’s success. They meet monthly to iron out details and ensure everyone is on the same page. No one works in silos; it’s a team effort, where everyone jumps in whenever and wherever it’s needed, Coar said.
“Everybody’s on equal ground — whether it’s me or the police chief or the supervisor of parks — everybody’s equal,” Coar said. “That whole thing of thinking that when you get your list of things to do that you’ve got it worse than anybody else is gone because they know the moving pieces.”
The script is an ongoing process.
In blue pen, Coar was making notes to the script Friday, Feb. 13, just more than a week away from the big day.
The week leading up to Music Fest Saturday, Feb. 21, is when planning turns to action.
Starting Monday, Feb. 16, the team started putting out more than 600 signs to notify people of street closings and other important information.
Throughout the week, the team will be sorting through shirts for the volunteers, ensuring they have all equipment necessary, following up on deliveries, checking in with bands and performers and more.
Wednesday, Feb. 18, the team of about 40 city employees involved in the festival, met to go over the script for the last time before the big day arrived.
On the night of Friday, Feb. 20, the team will be putting out more than 100 “No parking after 2 a.m.” signs. The Loop Stage is constructed. Beer trailers will be put in place.
At 2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, the real work begins.
From 2 a.m. to when the first concerts begin at 11 a.m., more signs are placed around downtown Winter Garden, the rest of the stages are set up and hundreds of garbage cans are placed around Plant Street. Vendors are entering in specific point of entries at specific times.
Every detail is accounted for, and at least 260 volunteers are dispersing throughout downtown Winter Garden to their assigned spots to carry out various duties.
Throughout the festival, everyone is ensuring the streets and concert grounds are clean and tidy.
Cleaning as they go makes the end of the event and returning downtown Winter Garden to its usual scene easy, Coar said.
With the last note played at 10 p.m., Coar said the part of takedown of the event that takes longest is taking the stages apart.
“We can clear an event, depending on the type, in an hour or two that took us multiple days to set up,” Coar said. “We’ll have everything looking like we were never here. Everybody knows their job.”
The team will head home around 1 a.m. beaming with pride over the success of the festival after working an almost 24-hour day.
“Seeing people enjoy it, people are smiling, people are happy, they’re hanging out together, that’s the best part of Music Fest,” Coar said. “The success isn’t book a band, the success isn’t decorating a stage, the success is not hanging banners. Success is how people feel.”
Every detail counts when it comes to putting together any city of Winter Garden event.
With everyone chipping in where and when it’s needed, Coar said her team is a well-oiled machine.
Ensuring all the details are in line makes for a smooth day.
For example, Coar and Mathis know every vendor, where they’re coming from and where they’ll be entering the event.
They know where each vendor needs to be go based on needs, such as the need for electricity.
They’re careful in the placement of each vendor. The ice cream vendor won’t be near any restaurants or businesses on Plant Street that sell ice cream. Beer and wine trailers aren’t put near Pilars Martini & Loft.
“We make sure we take care of our merchants,” Coar said of the businesses on Plant Street. “We make sure nothing impedes businesses or can negatively affect them. … When we bring in vendors, we are very careful how we space them and where we put them, that it enhances the food options because we know restaurants can’t handle 40,000 people.”
Every vendor has specific guidelines to follow, such as needing their tents to be white, so everything looks clean and consistent.
Not only are the placement of the vendors taken into consideration but also the stages as well as who will be performing on those stages.
Coar said they want to ensure there is a wide offering of genres when creating the band list. She knows Spazmatics have a huge following in the area, so they are a must-have every year.
The bands also must be family-friendly as they want the festival to be one people of all ages can enjoy.
They change up the bands that are invited to the festival every year to keep it fresh. They monitor the crowds of the bands at Music Fest to see how the bands are received, which they will take into consideration when choosing bands for the following year.
Knowing the popularity of some bands could result in them performing on a smaller stage.
New this year, the city will be using the Garden Theatre as a venue for Moonflower: The Spirit of Santana, a Santana tribute band, to perform. Coar said it was the perfect intimate setting for the band.
The stages are carefully spread across downtown Winter Garden so there is not a melding of music or audiences. At most, three bands perform at a time to ensure each band is given its time to shine and people can enjoy the performances.
Winter Garden hosted its first Music Fest a few years ago after previous iterations of a similar festival in the 2000s ended. At the time, the festival brought at least 7,000 people to Plant Street.
It now has grown to a daylong music festival that draws at least 40,000 people, some of whom plan their vacation to the area around the day of concerts, Coar said.
She said she’s been receiving three to five calls weekly for months from people across the country wondering when Music Fest would be because they happened to be in town a previous year for the festival and didn’t want to miss it this year. She receives calls from organizations across Florida wondering if they will have bus parking so they can send a group on a charter bus to the festival.
Although Coar said a one-day festival is more impactful, the growth in popularity of Music Fest could lead to the city considering making the festival a two-day affair.
“It’s reaching way beyond us and kind of growing on its own, because we don’t — other than our website and (the Observer) — advertise it,” Coar said. “We really are very local-centric. … It’s going to have to find a way to probably grow some more, but we don’t know what that’s going to look like at this point. Maybe it’s that second day, but we don’t know at this point.”
