Summer, friends, and music can only mean one thing: Lollapalooza! SZA, Chappel Roan, Future, Metro Boomin and many more artists performed at the biggest festival of the year in Chicago this past August.
The festival lasts four days and around 400,000 people attend each year. With 170 artists and bands performing, the tickets used to be “off the charts” until recently; concerts have been getting slower sales than usual.
“In past years, Lollapalooza typically sold out within minutes of putting tickets on sale. In 2016, when it expanded to four days from three, it sold out 80,000 four-day passes in less than an hour. But this year, four-day passes remain available a week before the festival was to begin, and of the 20,000 one-day passes available each day of the festival,” says Greg Kot, a critic for The Chicago Tribune.
One of the reasons ticket sales have slowed down is from the cancellation of artists that were supposed to perform at the festival. One major artist that canceled this year was Tyler the Creator. He had dropped out two months before the festival and later was replaced with Megan Thee Stallion and Sabrina Carpenter.
“I made a commitment that I can no longer keep, and that bums me out knowing how excited folks were. Please, please forgive me or call me names when you see me in person” said Tyler the Creator.
In 2024, a four day pass to the festival cost $365, but if you’re going for only two days, it cost $225 without the Chicago tax. Ticket companies usually start selling Lollapalooza tickets in March, but a lot of people wait until the summer for the resale due to tickets being cheaper.
“I had paid $350 for general admission for all four days,” said Plainfield North High School junior Ava Bhatti. “This did not include the money I had spent on food or transportation to get to Grant Park.”
Due to the popularity of the setlist, over 110,000 people came to the festival this year. Artists like Chapell Roan set a record for having the biggest set in Lollapalooza. This led to an extended amount of fans hovering around each other in the crowd.
“I went to the Chapel Roan concert on the first day of the festival,” said junior Salas Bentacourt. “Even though she had a massive set, I couldn’t see her due to the amount of people there at that one show.”
Some people find it cheaper going to a festival like Lollapalooza or Coachella than going to one artist’s concert. To go to a SZA concert with VIP access, most people have spent roughly $550. But if you want to see her at Lollapalooza, it would be $205.
“It started two decades ago with Lollapalooza and Coachella and has grown to the point where festivals like Louisville’s Bourbon and Beyond are featuring over 100 acts and get all those bands for $300 or less,” said John Matarese, WCPO 9 Cincinnati news reporter.
In a survey of 100 North students, 85 percent said they had paid more than $120 to go to a festival. 15 percent said they spent less than $120, and most of them reported that they were smaller festivals.
