Lyrical lemonade festival 20216/22/2023 All together, residents will have been fenced off from the south part of Douglass Park for most of the summer. The festival days themselves are not the only times the park is closed to the public it is also closed for weeks prior to and after each festival, to allow time for setting up and taking down stages, booths, and other infrastructure. The group said Riot Fest and its founder Michael Petryshyn have also donated more than $40,000 to Cardenas and Cardenas-related PACs in recent years.Ĭardenas and Scott’s offices did not respond to the Weekly’s requests for comment. Unete La Villita’s research shows that SPKRBX donated $7,500 to groups supporting Michael Scott and $12,500 to groups supporting Cardenas between June 2019 and July 2021. The media company behind Heatwave is Auris Presents.ĭouglass Park is split between two alderpersons: 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas, who just won the Democratic nomination for a county seat, and 24th Ward Alderperson Monique Scott, who was recently appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to take over the seat after the resignation of her brother, Michael Scott. Summer Smash was founded by media company Lyrical Lemonade and production label SPKRBX. Neither festival sought community approval beyond aldermanic support. Two other festivals have since arrived at Douglass Park: Summer Smash, which debuted in 2018, and Heatwave, which debuted this July. Local neighbors’ groups like Concerned Citizens of Riot Fest and Unete La Villita say they want Riot Fest out of their neighborhood, arguing that music festivals do not benefit the community and that public parks should not be privatized and fenced off. People from surrounding communities such as North Lawndale and Little Village say they were not consulted about its arrival. Event organizers had to pay $150,000 in repairs and find another location.ĭouglass Park started hosting the festival in 2015, and similar complaints immediately followed. In addition to the damage, residents said that areas of the park were shut down for months after the festival, rendering soccer and baseball fields unusable. Originally held indoors at Congress Theater, it moved to Humboldt Park, where the outdoor music festival was ousted by residents in 2014 after heavy rain and foot traffic damaged sections of the park. Around 40,000 people attend on each of its three days. ![]() and brings an array of well-known performers of varying genres including punk, hip-hop, rock, alternative, and metal. ![]() Riot Fest is one of the largest independently owned music festivals in the U.S. While Riot Fest organizers are in the thick of preparations, residents are bracing themselves for another wave of crowds, noise, traffic, and litter following festivals Summer Smash and Heatwave-in what has amounted to a whole summer without proper access to their neighborhood park.
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