Delaware preps for another influx of music fans

Here we go again. Thousands of music fans will flood the streets around Dover International Speedway, this time for the inaugural Big Barrel Festival.

While the first year country music festival will draw about one third of the fans who came to Firefly last weekend, there could still be some traffic problems along Rt. 13 and other roads in Dover. Up to 35,000 people are expected for the festival which starts Friday and runs through Sunday night.

Starting at noon on Thursday, campers and RVs will begin flowing into the Woodlands property at Dover International Speedway.

DelDOT’s Transportation Management Center (TMC) staff in coordination with the City of Dover Police and Delaware State Police will monitor traffic in and around Dover. 

For Firefly, organizers opened the gates for campers on Wednesday and had an extra day of music on Thursday. In its initial year, Big Barrel starts one day later for both camping and music.

While traffic was slowed last week due to Firefly fans, there weren’t any major problems. The biggest difficulty traffic-wise was exiting the festival Saturday night after the grounds were evacuated because of severe weather. There is a forecast for some rain this weekend, but no prediction so far of the severe storms that hit Firefly.