The Common Ground festival will return next year after a conservative estimate that the six-day Lansing gig will top last year's attendance by 20 percent.
"Of course we'll be back," public relations coordinator Malinda Larson said as the festival of music and food came to a close Sunday at Riverfront Park.
"When you have a 20 percent growth from last year, it is pretty much a guarantee."
Through Saturday, festival officials estimated the event had drawn 46,400 people. About 48,000 attended the first Common Ground festival last year and it lost $99,000.
Organizers had hoped to draw 60,000 people to this year's event, which included two main stages, 20 national acts and 19 food vendors.
Larson said Sunday's figures and six-day official totals would not be counted until the middle of the week.
Common Ground replaced the Michigan Festival, an East Lansing music and arts event that went bankrupt in 1998.
"Festivals like this are going to lose money the first three to five years," Larson said. "You're getting people to come down here who have never heard of it."
Sunday's best-known musical acts included Eddie Money, the Commodores and Bad Company.
Lansing's Amber Cliff, 24, said she didn't know a song by Eddie Money, who was singing about 200 yards in front of her on stage.
Then her friend, Ann Moch of Lansing, hummed a few bars to Money's 1978 hit "Baby Hold On" and Cliff nodded her head.
"OK," Cliff said. "I know that song."
She shrugged.
"It's a nice day, there is something to do and I don't have to do any yard work."
Moch wasn't big on the groups performing Sunday, either.
She's a big fan of Lionel Richie, who fronted the Commodores before leaving the group in 1982. He didn't perform Sunday.
"I didn't even know they were still a group," Moch said. "But I wish Lionel would show up and surprise us."
It didn't happen.
But Cliff was an example of how Common Ground has grown.
"Last year, I didn't even know about it until a friend told me she wanted to see one of the groups," Cliff said.
This year, she knew about it - and took a friend.
Bath's Mary Ann Wilcox went to Common Ground on Sunday with her daughter, Bonnie Pinion, and her grandson, 11-month-old David Wilcox.
She was impressed.
"I think this is great for a family," Mary Ann Wilcox said. "It seems pretty safe and there are a lot of police around. I think this is the hottest thing they have in Lansing."
Lansing police Sgt. Larry Klaus said that by Sunday evening two arrests were made at Common Ground in the six days. Two people evicted from the grounds tried to get back in and were arrested for trespassing.
Lansing's Roosevelt Hanks showed up at Oldsmobile Park to listen to Gospel music in a new addition to Common Ground - Gospel Fest 2K1.
"It is just a variety of groups. The sun is shining and I like gospel music," Hanks said.
Freddie Thomas, operational director of United Front Coalition, which put together the gospel event, said it would return next year after drawing an estimated 3,500 people Sunday.
Contact Tom Gantert at 377-1194 or tgantert@lsj.com.