The decades-old Taste of Minnesota festival had an overall familiar look on St. Paul's Harriet Island over the four-day Fourth of July weekend, but a few changes -- and a couple of glitches -- were noticeable.

For the first time, most patrons had to pay $10 to enter, but were then given tickets worth $10 for food or beverages. That was implemented to keep out trouble-makers, organizers said, who'd take advantage of the formerly free admission to roam the grounds without caring about the music or food.

It seems to have worked; attendance appeared to be down a bit from recent years -- totals were not yet available -- but there were apparently very few fights or incidents attracting the attention of police or security.

Taste founder Ron Maddox, who helped run the festival this year for a new set of owners, said he saw only three fights while riding around on his ever-present golf cart. That's way down from previous years, he said, primarily because of the paid admission gambit.

"Anytime you mix music with beer and wine, and men and women, there are going to be some fights," Maddox said. "But this year it was almost boring."

The new owners also used a "gold circle" preferential seating arrangement, a change that has drawn criticism from some fans and some of the musicians themselves: Those paying an extra $50 could sit right in front of the stage, while the rest of the crowd had to stay further back.

That led to Taste's biggest snafu on Sunday night, said Andy Faris, one of the new owners.

"We had a timing issue last night [Sunday] with the Bret Michaels show," Faris said Monday. "It was supposed to start at 8, but there was a delay, and then we received word that [Michaels] didn't want to go forward with empty seats [in the gold circle area], but we've got to shut down the music by 10 p.m., under the contract with the city."

Faris said he made a call on the spot -- and he's yet not sure if it was a good call or a bad call -- and opened up the gold circle area, so that the regular customers came forward into the area with the $50-paying fans.

Some of those paying fans weren't happy.

"I understand. I would have been angry, as well," Faris said. "But I can't rewind the clock."

Faris said he's offering refunds to those who paid $50 for the Michaels show, and he's calling everyone who's called or e-mailed with complaints.

There were also complaints from people who didn't pay for gold circle seats and were unhappy to be stationed further back from the stage.

"Clearly, some didn't understand the concept of gold circle seating: there is no free lunch, and this was implemented to subsidize the higher budget for entertainment that we paid this year," he said. "But we're going to review how we do it in the future. It wasn't meant to be 'Us vs. Them.' It was meant to help pay for better entertainment."

He said part of the problem with seating for the Micheals show Sunday came when 200 seats were set up for members of the military, but very few attended. That apparently left the large empty space that Michaels objected to. On Saturday night, Elvis Costello also made a comment about the empty space between the big spenders and the rest of the crowd.

Maddox estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 people attended the festival, on the Mississippi River bank across from downtown St. Paul.

In previous years, crowds have been estimated at 200,000 to 400,000, depending on weather, the economy and the scheduled bands. But those have always been estimates, because until this year there was no ticketing.

"It was down a little from last year, but that was anticipated because of the tickets," Maddox said.

Some also complained about the food, saying it's devolved over the years from a real Taste of Minnesota to a conglomeration of county fair food.

"Well, we're sure not going to take cheese curds away from Minnesotans," Faris said. "But we're looking to attract a wider range of restaurants for next year."

The festival faced another problem Saturday night, when a thunderstorm passed through quickly, sending performers and concert-goers into the shelter of nearby tents and shortening some of the shows.

"The sad thing was, the Vogues never got to sing their big hit 'Five O'Clock World,' " Faris said.