Should Chicago Have Milwaukee-Style Public Festival Grounds?

CHICAGO — From major music events like Lollapalooza to the world’s largest food fest, Chicago anchors some of the nation’s biggest music and cultural spectacles — often closing off city streets and public parks to make them happen.

A measure on Tuesday’s midterm election ballot will ask Chicagoans if the city should have a permanent festival and outdoor event space instead.

The designated location could “host concerts, cultural festivals, food and beverage events, sporting exhibitions, community celebrations, and other large gatherings,” per the resolution introduced and passed through the City Council by Bridgeport and Chinatown Ald. Nicole Lee (11th).

Five other aldermen have sponsored the resolution, including Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd). The question is important with Grant Park’s stacked festival lineup through the summer, which includes Lollapalooza, Sueños and Taste of Chicago, Hopkins said. In recent years, Taste of Chicago was bumped from a primetime summer stretch to September due to the NASCAR Chicago Street Race.

“Rather than act surprised every year that we’re going to have festivals and events Downtown and then set up temporary structures, I just thought it might be a good idea to see if the citizens of Chicago — and residents Downtown, in particular, which I represent — would be supportive of making something a bit more permanent,” Hopkins told Block Club.

An area that could have permanent stages for concerts, drainage, bleachers and other equipment necessary for large-scale events could help streamline the setup and teardown process while reducing inconveniences to residents, Hopkins said.

“I just thought it’d be a good conversation starter to put this referendum question in front of the voters and see what they think,” he said. “Do we want to keep having major Downtown events, and if so, should we be looking to improve the geography on which the events are hosted?”

The issue also extends to North Lawndale, where for years some neighbors have pushed back against Riot Fest’s presence in Douglass Park.

That includes Únete La Villita, an all-volunteer advocacy group fighting against displacement and for equitable development around Little Village, North Lawndale and Humboldt Park.

Organizer Sara Heymann told Block Club she’d love to see a public fairgrounds in Chicago.

“We’ve been fighting for years and years and years, trying to make the case that Douglass Park is just not even a suitable space for a big fest like this because it’s next to two hospitals,” Heymann said. “Chicagoans love their parks, but they also love music festivals. So we should have a place that is both accessible and fun and not destroying the neighborhood parks just for a few days for private festivals to take over.”

A rainy Riot Fest last month left Douglass Park muddied and full of standing water, upsetting neighbors who regularly visit the park. Like Lollapalooza, festival organizers are responsible for cleanup and restoring the park.

Riot Fest organizers said earlier this month that work to repair Douglass Park is underway and scheduled to wrap up before Thanksgiving, weather and ground conditions permitting. The estimated total price tag for the renovation work is $400,000 to $600,000, and crews are working six days a week to replace sod and other turf restoration.

Heymann points to Milwaukee’s Henry Maier Festival Park, public festival grounds owned by the city and operated by a nonprofit, Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. Covering 75 acres along Lake Michigan, the park has been home to Summerfest, one of the world’s biggest music festivals, since 1970. It includes space for vendors, multiple stages and a 23,000-seat amphitheater.

“We have been fighting for the conversation around a publicly owned festival grounds, similar to Milwaukee,” Heymann said. “We would have preferred to have the resolution come forward with some kind of plan, some framework, some assurance that it would be community-driven. But despite all that, we still are hoping that people vote yes, because we think that opens up the conversation for something like this to happen.

The Chicago Reader’s Leor Galil agrees that a Summerfest-style venue could be good for the city.

“A similar setup in Chicago could help independent local promoters who’ve had to cancel festivals due to the soaring costs of building, insuring, and breaking down stages in a park,” he wrote.

For others, the idea of consolidating festivals into one location would take away from their charm.

“I’ve just been attending Chicago’s music festivals and neighborhood festivals for the past 27 years and … I just found them to be incredibly life enhancing,” said one Lincoln Park resident who requested to remain anonymous. “I just think that’ll become a very generic sort of repository, and a lot of the cultural aspects of the events will disappear.”

While she said she’s been to the grounds in Milwaukee, she appreciates that Chicago festivals offer a chance to explore neighborhoods and some of Chicago’s 625 parks she might not otherwise visit, like when she attended Re:SET at Belmont Cragin’s Riis Park in 2023.

This summer, the Lakeshore Arts and Music Festival debuted in Lincoln Park, taking over a stretch near the Nature Museum for two days.

“I was thrilled to see that,” she said. “I sympathize with some of the inconveniences for sure, and I definitely get that it’s always hard to give up access to your park. … But to me that just seems like a small price to pay for having such a multicultural experience of really getting to know every corner of our city.”

Should the non-binding resolution pass, next steps would include gathering location ideas and designs that residents could get behind, Hopkins told Block Club.

While Hopkins said he would thinks Lower Hutchinson Field at the southern end of Grant Park could be a good fit for such a venue, Heymann said Soldier Field, the site of the former Damen Silos and new South Loop megadevelopment The 78 could also work.

If the project does move forward, Heymann hopes there is robust community outreach and that it will benefit the people of Chicago, not private interests. She pointed to Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, which is owned by the city but operated by Live Nation, one of the world’s largest live event corporations.

“I think that we need to ensure that that is not the case with a festival space for the city,” she said. “I think it needs to be publicly owned so that Chicagoans have a say over how it’s run and what it looks like, and then profit from it.”

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