This past week Lollapalooza announced that for their 25th anniversary they would extend their festival, which has typically been only three days, to become a four day long festival stretching from Thursday to Sunday.
In a press release on the Lollapalooza website founder Perry Farrell said:
“It’s our 25th Anniversary and we wanted to do something really special and different for our fans. There’s a lot of really great music coming out in 2016; with the abundance of talent that wanted to help us celebrate 25 years we got to thinking…‘How are we going to fit all those great artists in one weekend?’ Then we thought about what a special day Thursday has become. When the party can’t wait for the weekend, the movers and shakers make it happen on Thursday! So, we’ve put together an entire additional day of music to celebrate our milestone year”.
The festival runs from July 28th to July 31st this year, and with the increase in days there is a slight increase in ticket prices but there is no word on when early bird sales will start. C3 Presents co-owner Charlie Jones said “ the 25th anniversary of Lollapalooza’s 1991 origin and a glut of bands that want to play the festival next year” is why they made the expansion to a four day long festival. C3 Presents, which Live Nations acquired a controlling interest in in 2014, also puts on Austin City Limits. As of yet it the expansion seems like it will only be for 2016 and will fall back to being a three-day festival the following years.
The move makes sense with other festivals often being longer than Chicago's Lolla. Coachella is over two separate weekends, South by South West (SXSW) last a week, and Bonnaroo is 4 days. It will be interesting to see what headliners they bring out this year, if they will continue the trend of highlighting local Chicago/Mid-Western musicians, and if they will continue with their trend of bringing at least one big pop star, one huge rocker, and a group that has been around for at least 30 years.
If you don't know about Lollapalooza you can read our recap from this past year here.
Of note: It might be Lollapalooza's 25th anniversary but it is WIUX's Culture Shock music festival's 30th anniversary this year. So take that Perry Farrell.
