Wall-to-wall people: The Mississippi River Festival site was jammed with the largest crowd in festival history Monday night.

(SIU Photo)

32,000 Attend Concert Here

(Related Stories, Page 3)

More than 32,000 people — the largest audience in Mississippi River Festival history — turned out Monday night to hear the rock group "The Who." It was the final concert of the 1971 MRF season.

Total unaudited attendance at 13 popular concerts and 12 symphony concerts this summer was 141,032, an MRF spokesman said this morning.

Last year's total was 117,663. The crowd which attended The Who concert filled the 18-acre festival site to the fences, but remained orderly.

The audience was more than twice as large as the previous MRF record crowd — 15,671 — which attended a performance last summer by the rock group, "Chicago."

Second highest crowd this year was for soul singers Ike and Tina Turner — 14,386.

"The Who" audience was almost as big as the total attendance for all 12 Saturday and Sunday concerts by the St. Louis Symphony under the symphony's music director Walter Susskind and several guest conductors, including Andre Kostelanetz, Arthur Fiedler, Morton Gould and Henry Mancini.

The total attendance at symphony concerts this season was 35,410.

Last year's total for 18 symphony concerts (including six Thursday night concerts, duplicates of the Saturday concerts) was 33,916, a spokesman said.

The official MRF total for The Who concert was 32,132. However, a box office employe was quoted as saying that more than 34,000 tickets were sold.

The total this summer for all of the 13 popular concerts was 105,622. Here is a breakdown, in order of performance:

Jose Greco and Company, 820; Judy Collins, 10,703; Buddy Miles and John Baldry, 4,927; Mountain and Mylon, 8,354; John Hartford and Earl Scruggs, 2,108; Rock Revival, 4,882; Ike and Tina Turner, 14,386; Ferrante and Teicher, 3,739; Rod Stewart and Faces, and Southern Comfort, 9,703; Roberta Flack and Albert King, 7,578; Carlos Montoya, 2,438; Buffy Sainte-Marie, 3,852; The Who, 32,132.