By Jen Mohorek
Can you imagine a festival that interests over 300,000 people? Well, that’s how many people sat behind their computer screen waiting for Lollapalooza tickets to go on sale this past year. For the past 10 years, Lollapalooza has taken place in Grant Park, Chicago in early August. Because of the high demand, Lolla ticket prices increase every year, but fans seem to think the “Lolla Experience” outweighs the cost of the tickets.
“Crowded, exciting, a lot of bros and flower crowns, people from all over, and loud music,” said senior Olivia Girardi.
“Lolla was really unlike anything I have ever experienced. Not only was the music great, it was so fast paced and so packed with things that I was constantly moving, which was a lot of fun,” said Junior Alex Cahill.
As a band started playing their first song of the set, people’s eyes tripled in size, screams were wailed, and songs were chanted. People darted from place to place, ecstatic to move on to the next band.
Another thing that makes Lollapalooza so unique and diverse is the wide variety of genres it contains. Generally, music festivals stick to crowds with the same musical tastes and expectations. (I.e. Spring Awakening, an EDM/Dubstep music festival). However, anything from dubstep, to indie, rap, pop, and classical music can be found at Lolla. Headlining bands this past year included Skrillex, Kings of Leon, Eminem, The Arctic Monkeys, Outkast, and Calvin Harris.
“The Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex and Cage the Elephant really stuck out to me,” said senior Taylor Tumminaro. “The Arctic Monkeys didn’t even seem real they were so incredible live. It seemed like something out of a movie with all of the lights and smoke. Skrillex was absolutely insane! It was so much fun because it was like a giant party. Cage the Elephant was just insane. The singer was crowd surfing, diving in mud, and going wild on stage. We met a lot of people in the crowd which made it really fun.”
Although day three of Lolla was a complete mudbath, the nasty weather wasn’t enough to ruin people’s time at Lolla. It rained continuously throughout the day, leaving messy and slippery muddy areas near several stages. Despite the fact that it was a total mess, people didn’t let it ruin their experience and made a memorable time out of it.
“The rain impacted the area we were standing on,” said senior Caroline Stran. “There were fields of pure mud. While the rain did put a bit of a damper on everyones spirit overall, the crowd was too excited to see their favorite band to care.”