APPLETON, Wis. (NBC 26) -- As cases rise, there is concern for some of the summer's biggest events.
"It was gut-wrenching to not be able to do it last year," Mile of Music curator Dave Willems said.
And this year, Willems and the festival may have one more hurdle to cross. A different form of COVID-19 is driving another uptick in cases.
"We're concerned about watching the variants as we hear more and more about them," Willems said. "This place will have a couple thousand people in it."
Mile of Music uses 40 different indoor and outdoor venues. With around 100,000 expected to attend, organizers are confident the right mitigation is in place.
"Individuals who are really are concerned about it, this probably isn't gonna be the year for them to come to the Mile," Willems said.
Despite those concerns, major actions are still a ways away. Willems says it would take a drastic outbreak to impact Appleton's music festival next month.
"How do we either modify and continue to have the event, or do we have to move to another time?" he said. "That would be in the event of something that right now is unforeseen."
Just ten minutes away in Combined Locks, Paperfest is set to take place this weekend as a fully-outdoor event.
"It's hard to say that you're 100-percent confident," Paperfest organizer Matt Boots said. "But I'm not a person that lives in fear."
Still, Boots says the shows -- including the Eli Young Band -- will go on this Thursday at four spread-out stages.
"We're happy that we're not in the middle of September when [COVID numbers] might be back up," Boots said.
As the state's COVID numbers sit at their highest rate in a month, Boots is poised for a smooth Paperfest after three years of planning.
"If there is a curve, we don't know. It's too early to tell," he said. "But we're actually more concerned about the weather."
Both event organizers say outdoor stages are more spread out this year to curb COVID.
