Chicago Goes Full-Throttle With Live Music Festivals

The Windy City may have just set the bar — Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, and Riotfest are on at full capacity…

By Paul Marszalek
TheTop22.com

Great news for  music fans, great news for artists and the industry, and great news for radio stations that help sell tickets as Chicago green-lights three major music festivals at full capacity.

First up will be the return of Lollapalooza, with Foo Fighters, Post Malone, and Tyler the Creator among the headliners. The event is just ten weeks away, occurring in Grant Park July 29 through August 1.

Following will be the previously announced Pitchfork Music Festival, featuring St. Vincent, Erykah Badu, and Phoebe Bridgers, September 10-12 in Union Park.

Just a week later is Riot Fest, with Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Run the Jewels, DEVO, The Pixies, and many more in Douglas Park. Riot Fest has gone so far as to start selling 2022 tickets and announced that My Chemical Romance and the original Misfits will play next year.

It’s all welcome news for the music and radio industries, as these event join several others in aggressively returning to business even as other major festivals sit the year out.

Worth noting, the Chicago shows could be considered part of vaccine-related social engineering: Lollapalooza has announced that attendees will need to be fully vaccinated or provide proof of negative COVID-19 test results within 24 hours of attending Lollapalooza each day.

Although not directly related to the shows, the theme of “if you want to have fun, you need to get the shot” is widely considered part of a strategy by health departments to lure vaccine-hesitant populations into the fold. Making life inconvenient for the hesitant will get a few more shots in arms.

Lollapalooza organizers say further guidance, such as masks/no masks, will be updated in July, based on developments.

 

Main page photo of Chicago by Max Bender on Unsplash