It was smooth sailing for opening of Minnesota Yacht Club, the new music festival in St. Paul

Liz and Tom Glenn knew how to plan for a full day at a big music festival with their kids in tow.

The Shoreview family arrived Friday at the inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club Festival on Harriet Island in St. Paul with a blanket, a stroller and other parenting accoutrements like the Tushbaby. That’s a fanny-pack device that a parent can strap on and hold a child in front for dancing.

And Liz did just that with Vera, 7, during Michigander, the favorite act of Zander, 4, who studied the Kalamazoo indie rock group on YouTube.

“This is their first concert,” said Liz, 42, whose first festival was Lilith Fair back in the 1990s.

Minnesota Yacht Club is the first music festival since 2012 at Harriet Island, which has a long history of such events including Riverfest and Taste of Minnesota.

But as the elitist moniker might suggest, Minnesota Yacht Club (MYC) was a first-class operation — from electronic wrist bands of various strata to riverboat cruises — presented by C3 based in Austin, Texas, which stages Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.

“They do great on events. It’s dialed in,” said Jay “J-Bird” Cook, who helped organized the Soundset hip-hop festival in the Twin Cities from 2009 to 2019. He came to MYC with his wife and daughter to see Joan Jett, “one of my childhood crushes.”

Such ‘90s stars as Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani on Friday drew a crowd of 34,000, mostly between the ages of 45 and 60 (Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Offspring are slated for Saturday). There are two stages, running opposite each other, with about a minute passing when one stage finishes and the other begins.

Greg Pilkington, 61, of Salt Lake City was disappointed that the Black Crowes, the act he most wanted to see, canceled on Thursday night because of illness. But otherwise he was impressed.

“This is well thought out,” said the New Orleans Jazz Fest regular. “The food was OK, better than most fests but not as good as Jazz Fest.”

He added that the video screens on the two stages were “small for a venue of this size.”

The good thing, several festgoers mentioned, was that you could stay in one spot and still see the other stage even though it was a couple of football fields away.

Chris Foley, 53, of Dayton was impressed by “how much infrastructure they have. I thought they wouldn’t put in enough money. The sound is so good we could hear from the St. Paul Hotel. And the vendors are set up so people can spend money as fast as they can.”

Some festgoers in long lines might disagree. One bearded man was about 40th in line at the mocktail stand. “It’s either this or go sober,” he said, declining to give his name. But he’d already done his good deed for the day, volunteering to fill up a large garbage bag with empty cans in exchange for a free festival T-shirt.

Of course, he could have paid $40 for the shirt at the merch tent, where there were special express lanes for Chase cardholders and VIP ticket holders.

Paxton Schenck,14, of Woodbury tapped her feet in the VIP bleachers to Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”

“It’s really cool,” she said. Her only previous concert, she said, was Katy Perry.

But she and her aunt, Elizabeth Hjelmen, 43, of Minneapolis wanted to head down to the field to get close to the stage for Stefani. Good move, because Stefani’s husband, country superstar Blake Shelton, joined her for “Purple Irises.”

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter welcomed the crowd before Stefani took the stage at dinnertime. He asked for a round of applause for all the St. Paul workers who helped make the festival run smoothly in a city park, and praised the partnership with C3 promoters.

“If you want to come back next year,” Carter said, “then make some noise.”

The crowd hollered back at him.

Several veteran festivalgoers had suggestions for next year.

“They need more seating for VIP,” said Amy Ross, 65, of Albuquerque, N.M. “It’s not a cheap ticket for a two-day festival — $675. Selling chairs would be a huge money maker.”

Sporting a Joan Jett & the Blackhearts T-shirt, Mike Latour, 67, of Minneapolis, a veteran of Coachella and Lollapalooza at Harriet Island in the ‘90s, wished that Jett’s set had lasted longer than 60 minutes.

Corey Baesler, 28, of Minneapolis pronounced MYC “not as cool as Bonnaroo but better than Warped Tour or We Fest. Letting people bring in camping chairs would be my recommendation.”

With blankets allowed, festgoers just had to plan ahead — like the Glenns did. They arranged for Grandma to pick up the kids about 6:30 p.m., so Mom and Dad could return for the final four hours of music.