(The Center Square) – Chicago voters overwhelmingly voted Tuesday in support of a permanent festival grounds for the city in a non-binding ballot question. While there was support, the question may have left some with more questions about the proposal.
The question, which asked if it should have its own festival grounds on publicly owned land, didn’t advise voters of a location, costs to the city’s taxpayers or when planning would begin.
Alderman Nicole Lee, the councilwoman behind the ballot question, said a festival site would help shift the delay and closure of public parks after events like Lollapalooza or Riot Fest.
After a particularly rainy Riot Fest concluded in Douglass Park, neighborhood residents complained the park’s grass had been entirely killed and the park was mainly a field of mud.
Residents complain each year that the festival ruins the park, but Riot Fest’s organizers say they bear the costs of restoring the park.
This year, restoration began two days after the festival concluded, and the festival’s founder, “Riot” Mike Petryshyn said it cost them between $400,000 and $600,000.
One co-owner of the independently owned music venue Bookclub in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood, Nick Heineman, raised questions in a video on the venue’s social media about who would control and benefit from the proposal
“They’re asking us to vote on a public land use for music festivals and concerts. Sounds cool? Maybe. Probably not. What happened the last time we had public land use for a concert is Northerly Island Huntington Bank Pavilion. 100% booked by Live Nation – no room for independents,” Heineman said
A September study by the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator found that the Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island has been rented to LiveNation through a lease agreement below market-rate, and the city has skipped out on the chance to renegotiate the terms of their agreement with the company to use the private land.
The city gets $350,000 per year for Live Nation to use the property, $1.25 per ticket and portions of other revenues. In exchange, the company gets exclusive use of the amphitheater that was built and expanded by the Chicago Park District using $4.7 million in taxpayer funds.
The near-decade agreement was made in 2013 and the city’s share of revenue has not been adjusted for inflation after it was renewed annually beginning in 2022, despite concert ticket prices nearly doubling since Live Nation began operating the venue.
And Heineman isn’t alone about the concern over what parties are in control of venues in the state.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul was one of 33 state AGs to continue a joint multi-state and U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust lawsuit against the company after the DOJ came to a settlement with the company early this year.
“These anticompetitive business practices also stacked the deck against Illinoisans, who faced higher prices and fees,” Raoul said after the states won the suit at trial.
No language proposing a permanent festival grounds in the city has been released publicly, through many residents and some aldermen have pointed to Milwaukee’s festival grounds, which hosts the music festival Summerfest annually, as a guide.
Henry Maier Festival Park, owned by the City of Milwaukee, is maintained and operated by a non-profit through a partnership.
