Music festival Lollapalooza may have given the people of Chicago a great time, but has left behind a hefty clean-up bill.
The four-day event which stopped at Chicago’s Grant Park between August 2 and 4 was presented with its second-largest cleanup bill to date earlier this month, coming in at a huge $645,000.
However the festivals clearly don’t stop when the bills come in, with Chicago holding a whole range of great music events.
Lollapalooza’s touring company C3Presents will need to pay the city of Chicago not only litter collection costs, but to have the park’s lawn re-sodded and any divots left over from vendor tent poles to be filled in.
Grant Park’s lawn will also be re-mulched to keep the grass looking green and healthy heading into the early fall season.
Other fees include full aeration of the lawns, temporary irrigation of dead and dried grass, an improvement to the park’s watering system, and the replacement of shrubs which were removed to make the grounds more accessible.
All costs are automatically paid by C3Presents each year to guarantee the use of the park for the festival in the following year.
Although the bill is the second highest the city has ever requested from the company, it doesn’t go anywhere year the record-breaking bill in 2011.
Four days of unforgiving rain during the 2011 festival brought in a fine of $1 million thanks to huge mudslides and violent thunderstorms which endangered both the musicians and their crowds.
The heavy weather meant that a full replacement of the park’s 200 famous lilac bushes had to be paid for, alongside the resodding of the entire southern end of the park and full rehabilitation of all the park’s ballfields.
Repairs took three months to complete, which threatened the running of several other pre-planned events.
This year, however, the picture-perfect weather has made it hard to disguise the sheer amount of damage done by the crowd of thousands.
The cost to clean up 2016’s festival was $453,000 – which was nearly double the cost of around $236,000 in 2015.
No estimate has been set for how long this year’s cleanup will take, which follows the annual Taste of Chicago festival which took place in Grant Park in July.
This year’s lineup included Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino, Twenty One Pilots, The Strokes, and The Chainsmokers, which brought in over 400,000 festival-goers.
During this year’s event, city officials said 89 people were taken to hospital during the first three days, largely due to alcohol-related problems.
A 24-year-old man sadly passed away in hospital after suffering a medical emergency whilst on festival grounds. He was later identified as Benjamin Seto of Falls Church, Virginia.
23 people were arrested during the first three days of the festival, largely on drug-related charges. Ten others were given city citations at Lollapalooza which were mostly for trespassing, and one for the illegal use of a drone.
Ahead of the event, city officials said safety was of ‘top priority’ and said that the 2019 security plan was under improvement as soon as the 2018 event ended.
Around 900 security offers from three different companies were placed around the grounds in addition to both undercover and visible police officers. Visible measures such as security cameras, metal detectors, jersey walls, and even salt trucks were on-site.
And if you haven’t quite had enough of festivals for this year, check out Chicago’s Annual Pizza Summit which will be held in October.
