MINNEAPOLIS — Another large-scale music festival has joined the club in St. Paul.

The Minnesota Country Club debuts Friday and Saturday at Harriet Island Regional Park. It’s an offshoot of the Minnesota Yacht Club festival, which has been a resounding hit the past two summers and has another run coming up the weekend after Country Club, July 17-19. You might call Country Club a warm-up act for Yacht Club.

Both events are put on by C3 Presents, the Texas-rooted, Live Nation-affiliated concert promotions company behind some of the country’s biggest music festivals, including Chicago’s Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

In the competitive field of putting on festivals, C3 knows what it’s doing. But a lot of Minnesota music fans don’t quite know what the company is doing with Minnesota Country Club. It features a lineup of acts you don’t hear on country radio stations.

Here’s an explanation of what it’s all about.

How it’s similar to Yacht Club: Country Club is using the same location and layout, same two stages, same nonstop-but-never-overlapping performance schedule, same wristband ticketing system (with a lot of VIP options), a lot of the same fonts and signage and many of the same concessionaires and infrastructure as Minnesota Yacht Club. If you bought a T-shirt and wristband to both fests, from a distance you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart.

How it’s different: Country Club is two days instead of three (as was Yacht Club in its first year ). Tickets are cheaper (currently $115 for one-day passes, compared to $160/day for Yacht Club). And obviously the artists in the lineup come from a different fleet than Yacht Club

Who’s playing it: The headliners are rowdy West Texas country-rock band Treaty Oak Revival on Friday and Alabama’s gospel-y twangers the Red Clay Strays on Saturday. Other acts spread throughout the lineup include Minnesota’s own bluegrass-y stars Trampled by Turtles, old-school honky-tonker Charley Crockett, Amy Winehouse-sultry singer Jessie Murph, fiery political folkie Jesse Welles and other Southern-rock-y tunesmiths such as Stephen Wilson, Jr., Charles Wesley Godwin, Paul Cauthen and Boy Golden. Oh, and Mike Love’s Beach Boys, who were clearly thrown in just for fun, fun, fun.

Are those artists really “country” acts? Not if your idea of country music starts at Kenny Chesney and ends at Morgan Wallen. Many of these artists come from outside the gimmicky, corporate Nashville music industry. They write their own songs, instead of using a formulaic team of writers. However, they do have twanged-up sounds, Southern lyrical themes and blue-collar appeal. Red Clay Strays’ hits, for instance, include “Wondering Why” and “Demons in Your Choir,” the former about a guy in love with someone out of his league and the latter about Christians who don’t pretend to be sinless.

Why the music lineup makes sense: These artists are culled from a new wave of country-leaning artists who’ve gained popularity on TikTok, YouTube and streaming platforms, instead of radio. They appeal to younger and often more urban fans. The poster children of this subset include Zach Bryan, Kacey Musgraves, Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson, each now headlining arenas or stadiums around the world. Some of these Country Club artists could be next.

Why the overall idea makes sense: Don’t expect a turnout like the 35,000-person sell-out crowds that Minnesota Yacht Club has attracted. A third of that number is more likely. However, for the festivals’ organizers, Country Club likely offers extra return on investments. The two events share the same setup, production and marketing costs, as well as staffing resources. So there is less money at stake for Country Club. And who knows? First-year festivals are see-what-sticks test runs that often turn into bigger affairs in subsequent outings. Just like Yacht Club did.

Minnesota Country Club

When: 1-10:30 p.m. Fri. & Sat.

Where: Harriet Island Regional Park, St. Paul.

Tickets: $115/day, $160/two-day, $205-$1,250 VIP, minnesotacountryclubfest.com.

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