While school is certainly still in session, that doesn’t stop us from dreaming about summer. Plans are already being made for those three glorious months away from midterms and grouchy professors.
Among common summer plans are concerts and music festivals, and on April 3rd many Univeristy of Illinois students were grappling for tickets to Lollapalooza – the 3-day music festival held every year in Grant Park in Chicago.
This year, tickets for the festival sold out in a record four hours, leaving many students angry.
Bridget Anderson, a sophomore in the College of Business was unable to get tickets.
“I refreshed [the page] all day and treid to get secret sale passes.,” said Anderson. “I made it to the ticket standby pages but once it loaded it said they were sold out.“
Thousands of other fans had similar experiences. But why are festival tickets suddenly so difficult to obtain? Some believe that the actual bands playing make little difference to people buying tickets.
Allison Diaz, sophomore in the College of Business, is frustrated by the amount of presale tickets that were bouht.
“All of the people who got three day passes had no idea who there were seeing when they forked up to $200 for tickets” said Diaz.
Charles Attal, owner of C3 Presents, the company that produces Lollapalooza and other music festivals, believes it’s more about the experience than the bands themselves.
There’s always going to be complaints about every lineup. You have to look at tickets sales,” Attal. “If they’re selling out in an hour, it’s the fan experience. I don’t think it’s about one band.”
Over 130 bands will be performing at this year’s Lollapalooza, which will be August 2-4, including Mumford & Sons, The Cure, Vampire Weekend and The Lumineers.
Despite the difficulty to get tickets, not everyone was unsuccessful. Mary Horkavi, sophomore, was able to get tickets with the help of her mom, who held tickets for her.
“We were so lucky,” said Horkavi. “If she would have started holding them a minute later we wouldn’t have gotten our tickets.”
Even now in a day with so much technology, it seems impossible for anyone to obtain tickets on his or her own. If outside sources are needed to help get tickets, is Lollapalooza being true to their original vision?
The festival has been growing. In 2012, Lollapalooza attracted more than 3000,000 according to a press release from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office.
“Lollapalooza is a remarkable event that draws hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world to downtown Chicago every summer for three days of great music and fun in one of the world’s most outstanding cities,” said Mayor Emanuel.
To the city of Chicago, Lollapalooza is one of the biggest tourism weekends of the year. To music lovers, it is an absolute dream.
Melissa Radek, sophomore in engineering, was put on the waiting list for tickets and was lucky enough to get a one-day pass.
“I honestly think there’s just a lot of luck in who gets through right away and who doesn’t,” said Radek.
Despite the limited number of tickets, Lollapalooza isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. People will scalp, pay tons of money and even climb some fences just to get a sneak at this year’