Pinestock returns for year two

The longtime tradition of the Pinestock festival returned to CSB+SJU last year after a 15-year hiatus.

This year’s festival, held on Saturday, May 2, will look slightly different.

The Entrepreneurship Club, along with its many collaborators, has taken feedback from last year and made some improvements.

The event will feature Milk & Honey’s hard ciders, both student performers and a cover band, food trucks with free food, raffle prizes and a charter bus offering rides between the campuses and the venue.

Pinestock first debuted in 1979 on Watab Island.

For the next 40 years, it would become a CSB+SJU spring tradition that many students looked forward to during the last few weeks of the semester.

Since 2010, however, the annual festival has gone dormant.

Last year, the Entrepreneurship Club resurrected Pinestock, this time at Milk & Honey Ciders in St. Joseph.

According to event organizer and SJU senior Thomas Odenthal, there was approximately 750 students in attendance.

This year, they are looking to host nearly 1000.

“Obviously, it was our first year last year, so it’s not going to be perfect by any means, and it’s not going to be perfect this year, but just kind of continuing to build off the good,” Odenthal said.

He also said that the decision to create Pinestock Revival was an easy one.

“I’m a fourth generation Johnnie. Both of my parents went here; my brother went here, and a lot of cousins and different relatives have gone to both campuses. The common denominator from those conversations is how much of a great time Pinestock used to be,” Odenthal said.

Once the idea was in motion, the entrepreneurship club was able to book The Mallrats, a popular 90s cover band.

“[The Mallrats] have played kind of all over the state, all over the Midwest, so they’re going to be able to kind of bring some good energy to St. Joe and to both of our campuses,” Odenthal said.

The openers will feature student performances by SJU senior Josh Anderson, SJU senior Finn Pehl and CSB senior Sophia Heles.

Each opener will play a 15-minute set, and Anderson said he is excited to share his original songs with the crowd.

“I have two originals that I wrote and I’m excited to share, and then I have a fun song my dad wrote,” Anderson said. “It’s a really fun kind of jokey song about the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota, that he wrote when I was a kid. He’ll be there too, so I want to sing that for him, and should be a lot of fun.”

For Anderson, being asked to perform at Pinestock was a big deal.

“If in 20 years, I look back and thought that I had the chance to play it at Pinestock my senior year and didn’t take it, I probably would have regretted it. So here we are,” Anderson said.

Pehl will also be performing all original songs, though these were recently released on multiple streaming platforms as part of his album “Far from the Tree,” which was recorded and produced in Alcuin.

“It’s probably going to be the largest crowd I’ve ever played for, so that’s going to be very, very exciting,” Pehl said.

Heles said she is looking forward to seeing people enjoy the music.

“That’s what I’m mainly excited for, just to kind of get it running again and just get a good environment for people to relax and have fun,” Heles said.

Anderson shared that performing at Pinestock is a highlight of his time in college.

“It’s Pinestock. I love knowing the history of it and tradition. Getting to be a part of that, my senior year is just really special, really cool,” Anderson said.

The entrepreneurship club couldn’t finance Pinestock alone.

$2,500 in donations came from St. Cloud Toyota, and Kensington Bank also donated $500.

Blaze Credit Union donated a signed Brock Faber hockey puck for a raffle prize, and St. Cloud Scheel’s gave $250 in gift cards.

Odenthal said that the rest of the funding came from campus clubs.

“We generated about $25,000 in money donated from other clubs… collaborating with us on this event,” Odenthal said.

Collaborators include campus DJs, the nursing club, the nutrition club, the hidden opponent, the economics club and the pickleball club.

Though no tickets are necessary, the entrepreneurship has requested that students RSVP from the link in their Instagram bio so they can calculate an estimate number of attendees.