The Festival Rothbury Actually Shows Up For Isn't Electric Forest

Wally Wojack used to say life has a way of circling back, that most people "end up right where we started." He ranched the land outside Rothbury for most of his life, and the town's Labor Day weekend is built entirely around the forest he planted and the rodeo that now carries his name.

Say "Rothbury" to anyone outside Oceana County and they picture one thing: Electric Forest, the festival that fills a 2,000-acre resort with 50,000-plus people every June. That's the version of Rothbury that shows up in national press. It is not the version that residents actually keep on their calendars. The event locals build their September around happens on the same land, under the same pines, and draws a crowd small enough to fit in a 3,000-seat arena. It's named after the man who planted those pines in the first place.

A Rancher Planted the Forest Everyone Else Just Parties In

Walter "Wally" Wojack was a decorated World War II veteran who came home to Michigan and eventually became a co-owner of the horse ranch that is now Double JJ Resort. In 1955, he led a group of Rothbury locals in replanting a barren hayfield with six-inch white pine seedlings supplied by the state. Those seedlings are now more than 70 feet tall, according to the Oceana Echo's history of the resort. The grove has a name, Sherwood Forest, and it is where Electric Forest is held every year.

So the festival that made Rothbury a destination for out-of-towners exists because a rancher and his neighbors spent a day sticking pine seedlings into dirt seventy years before the first bass drop. Wojack died in 2017 at 89. The resort didn't wait long to put his name on something that would outlast a music festival's marketing budget.

The Rodeo Named After Him Runs on a Different Clock

Every year on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Double JJ hosts the Wally Wojack Memorial Rodeo. In 2026, that's Saturday, September 5, at the resort's Rodeo Grandstands on Water Road. The difference between this event and Electric Forest isn't just scale. It's who's running it and who it's for.

The show is produced by Super Kicker Rodeo, a fourth-generation family outfit run by Cathy and Joe Johnston out of Paris, Michigan. Joe announces. Cathy handles everything behind the scenes. According to reporting from Shoreline Media on last year's event, the Johnstons worked roughly two dozen towns that season before their circuit wrapped up at the finals in Midland the following weekend. Riders came from Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana chasing points toward that championship, not fame, and there's no reason to expect this year's stop plays any differently.

Here's the contrast that actually matters if you live here:

One of these events is built for people flying in. The other is built for people who already have a truck parked in the driveway.

What Actually Happens on September 5

The schedule, straight from Double JJ's own listing, breaks down like this:

• 4:00 p.m. – Gates open, midway carnival games begin
• 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. – Beer tent and BBQ pig roast dinner available for purchase
• 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. – Rodeo, featuring bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc, ranch bronc, girls' barrel racing, team roping, break-away roping, and chute dogging
• After 9:00 p.m. – Rodeo after-party at Shooters Saloon in the resort's Back 40

Pony rides run for kids before the main event. Parking is cash only, five dollars, and it goes to a nonprofit rather than the resort's bottom line. In past years that five dollars has landed in different places, Oceana County food pantries one year, local veterans' causes another, but it has never once gone toward paying for the show itself. That's a small detail, and it's the kind of detail that tells you what kind of event this actually is. Electric Forest sells parking as a line item on a festival budget. The rodeo treats it as a collection plate.

Where the Town Eats That Week

Rothbury doesn't reinvent its restaurant lineup for one weekend, and that's part of the point. The places open on any given Tuesday are the same ones filling up before and after the rodeo:

• Ricos Tamales, a small Mexican spot on South Michigan Avenue known for authentic tamales and limited seating, so early arrival matters more here than almost anywhere else in town.
• Danny'z Rothbury Tavern, the closest thing Rothbury has to a default bar-and-grill.
• Curly Horse American Bistro, which shows up on local "upscale dining" lists for anyone wanting a sit-down meal with the evening.
• The Gnarly Heifer, another name that keeps recurring in resident reviews.
• Mac's Meats, the butcher counter that keeps showing up on locals' lists alongside the sit-down spots.

None of these are festival pop-ups. They're the businesses that stay open in February, too.

The One-Weekend Test

If you want a single way to tell Rothbury's two identities apart, it's this: Electric Forest is something the town hosts. The Wally Wojack Memorial Rodeo is something the town runs. One brings a crowd that leaves cash at the gate and disappears until next June. The other brings back the same families, the same rodeo circuit regulars, and a five-dollar parking donation that ends up back in the county it came from.

That distinction is worth knowing if you're already living here and deciding how to spend the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Head to the grandstands by 4 p.m. if you want the midway to yourself before the pig roast line forms, and save the drive to Sundance Steakhouse or Curly Horse for after the after-party winds down, not before the rodeo starts.

Rothbury's calendar has a rhythm that has nothing to do with festival season, and September 5 is the clearest proof of it.

If you're weighing a move to Oceana County and want the version of these towns that doesn't show up on a festival flyer, Gabriela Peterson has spent her career learning which weekends actually define a place versus which ones just draw a crowd. Schedule your free consultation to talk through what life here looks like once the gates close.