Chicago Location • Page 26

Portions too small though (or maybe I'm just fat)

 

I understand they try to give back, but I believe its more for appearances than it is meant to actually help the community; the efforts that the fest makes does very little to materialize better living for the people in the community. Temp jobs have their obvious problem, and offering free tickets to a punk show to Chicago west-side residents isn't exactly a benefit. The fest requires a person requesting a free ticket for ID and two pieces of mail, which isn't always easy to provide for young people in the community, as stable housing is hard to come by, and if they are not a documented citizen, that becomes next to impossible. A fee-wavier for local vendors doesn't do much for them either, when those neighborhoods lack small businesses, let alone business that would interest the demographic of Riot Fest goers.

As far as the charity work is concerned, I can't find anything from them that says they actually donate any of their profits from the fest. I've seen them do social media campaigns ASKING for donations, but nowhere can I find evidence of them actually using their money to donate anything. The Riot Fest Foundation is a non-profit, and like many non-profits in major cities, they stand to gain more in their investments by doing little for the people they claim to be helping.

Also, the park being destroyed is different from Grant Park, because Douglas Park is not in the center of the city, and ultimately not a priority for the city; Grant Park serves mostly tourists, wealthy skyrise apartment owners, and casual passerbys, while Douglas Park is within a community that is largely ignored. The 100k people that visit the neighborhood once a year does more harm than anything else to the people there. The people employed there are mostly service industry folk who work downtown, which is difficult to get to when the majority of the public transit's resources are focused on getting people to the park.

I'm not saying the fest benefits nobody in the area, but my point is that the amount of people the fest hurts outweighs the people it helps, and that there is plenty of room to improve here. What they're doing now is the bare minimum, which is whatever it will take to protect their investment.

 

What solutions do you suggest Riot Fest undertake then? Both to provide more benefit to the area and the residents. Because on paper and from what I've read, it seems like they legitimately trying. Aldermanic feedback appears to be mostly positive from what I've read. I've read a lot of positive feedback online from people who supposedly live in those communities (albeit you can't really tell in comment sections). Obviously it'd be better to provide permanent jobs to the community, but that's the nature of the event industry. That issue is beyond the scope of Riot Fest and is going to need to be tackled by local economic development authorities.

While I agree with you that it's difficult to measure the impact of Riot Fest's supposed charity efforts, I did find some anecdotal evidence that Riot Fest provided drinks for a local football league awards dinner, donated Thanksgiving turkeys, held a Christmas toy drive, and organized a free soccer clinic with the Chicago Fire from this article (https://www.chicagoreader.com/chica...zens-dispute-controversy/Content?oid=23286765). There's also some interesting perspectives in there from local activists that I hadn't considered. I agree with you though in one regard - if Riot Fest is providing benefits to the local community, there should be more illumination to it beyond first-party PR distributions and foot notes in general articles about the festival.

I haven't been to Douglas Park outside of a festival so I can't first hand assess the damage that the festival has done to the park, but Riot Fest pays a $200,000+ permit fee annually to the Park District and has paid a similar amount after the last two festivals to improve the condition of the park after the last two festivals with the bulk of that being the result of the 2015 mud catastrophe. There's at least efforts going in to attempt to beautify the park. Again, this could all be a bit of a greenwashing effort by the Riot Fest folks since I haven't seen the results first hand, but at least it looks like they're trying.

As for the disruptions to life and commuting, that comes with the territory of living in the city, IMO. During the summer, it feels like there's a big event every weekend that causes some type of disruption whether it be a big event downtown like Lolla, a neighborhood festival that blocks a major thoroughfare like the Logan Square Arts Festival or Do Division Fest, or the block party in my neighborhood that blocked street parking in front of my old place one random Saturday in July. I get that Riot Fest is a bigger event than typically exists in a neighborhood like Douglas Park with a larger footprint than an area resident might

I don't have any ideas about good possible solutions for this because it's a complex problem that brings up a lot of issues around social justice, gentrification, etc. that are beyond my purview both in life experiences and general knowledge. Riot Fest will probably get the NIMBY attitude wherever they go at this rate. IDK, man.

 

The best solution would just move the fest in an area better suited for it. The neighborhood fests elsewhere don't attract nearly as many people as Riot Fest, and they take place in affluent communities, or gentrified ones. If they'd like to stay, as I pointed out in my first op, they could invest in public housing, or in local businesses and schools. Just providing a few vague philanthropic gestures is always just enough to appease people invested in the fest, but they should be demanding more for these people whose pubic space is being occupied.

 

Ah I just read through most of this thread and saw that most of the places I wrote have already been mentioned. Sry bout that.

 

Where do you live? I don't mind a good SJW but what are you doing to help with public housing, business, and schooling in these Chicago neighborhoods? Why does Riot Fest need to be contribute to these huge and socially complex things just because they use a public park (with permission) for a weekend?

Or is this just an opportunity to point out issues from behind a keyboard at distance because that's the current hot-take regarding Riot Fest?

 

I don't have a dog in this debate anymore, but I feel like I have to point out if you begin your argument by pulling out the "SJW" card then it invalidates the crux of what you're trying to get across because it comes across as a put down. Just my opinion.

 

That's fair.

My point was more of I think being a SJW is a not a bad thing and can be very much a good thing. However, I do think it does the title of SJW a disservice when you aren't acknowledging what Riot Fest does try and accomplish provides some value to the community. Whether it's big enough or not shouldn't matter since it's shouldn't be the role of a music fest to make sure large, socially complex things like long term jobs, education, and housing are accounted for.

Also, I'm sorry but OP's posts reek of armchair activist. Which definitely influenced my tone and I acknowledge that's more on me than OP.

 

Where I live and what I do doesn't make any difference to the argument; I'm not in charge of running a major music festival, which is marketed and designed for white nostalgia, that takes place in a disenfranchised neighborhood comprised of 90% Black people. If you read my previous posts, you can see that I am aware of what they're doing, and what I'm arguing is that there is a LOT of room for improvement in regards to their philanthropic efforts, and it would be cool to see those who enjoy the fest to put pressure on the people in charge of it. By all means, I'm not expecting the fest alone to solve the community's problems, but they have the clout and resources to do more.

 

Snapped up tix to RF, Against Me/Bleached/The Nillest, and Touche/Single Moms w/ my first paycheck. Now to live like a hermit until those shows lol.

 

I still need to get my RF 2-day tickets. I went to OWTH on Wed and have 88 Fingers Louie tonight. So many shows in this city. No one was even talking about Washed Out (I think they are pretty big) coming to town last night because Lady Gaga was down the street at Wrigley. Between buying furniture and tickets, I'm looking around where my paychecks are going too haha.

 

My google calendar is slammed starting in mid September. Probably a good thing living in the suburbs: forces me to be frugal for a lot of weekday shows especially.

 

Dude, that is so true. I decided day of to do the OWTH show. I got home from work and was like, I could get a ticket now and just walk there in a few minutes. So I did haha.

 

Anyone need a Riot Fest 3-day pass? Just looking to get back the $150 I paid for it.

 

Anyone know what time Pkew Pkew Pkew will be playing at the Wurst Fest on Friday 9/8?

 

It doesn't look like they've posted set times for that yet. It doesn't hurt to ask on the Facebook event though. They've been responding to inquiries there.

 

Anybody selling Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett tix?

 

Flying to Chicago to see Brand New in October. This will be my first post of many asking about what to see and do while i will be in this beautiful city. Already been once and loved it. Any recommendations? Also thinking of maybe doing airbnb. Anyone ever done it in Chicago? I've never done airbrb at all actually

 

There's really so much to do, it would help if you could specify what kind of stuff you're interested in, which neighborhood(s) you're thinking of staying in, etc.

 

Well right now we aren't sure yet exactly where we are thinking of staying. About to look at that today actually....somewhere between Miracle mile and the venue maybe but I really need to look at a map and start looking more closely. Any accommodation recommendations around Aragon? We are flying into Midway airport not O'Hare. Any neighborhood you recommend staying in?

 

there's not much going on up by the Aragon honestly. Some may disagree but there's only a couple of spots for pre-show drinks.

 

Depending on your budget, Lincoln Park and Old Town are very leafy and neighborhood esque by very pricey, convenience factor is there though for public transport, beach, etc. Lakeview is north of that, which has a bunch of bars but can get raucous on the weekends if you're on Clark or Halsted. Especially if the Cubs are in the playoffs then you may wanna avoid that. Echoing Jim's comment about Uptown - I'd actually recommend north of the venue though (North of Lawrence Ave) toward either Argyle St (Little Vietnam), Edgewater (beach access, cool vibe, lot of high rises, public transport) or Andersonville (good bar/restaurant scene, more neighborhood-like)

Alternatively if you want something closer to Midway the South Loop ain't bad. Good access to public transport, Grant Park, and all the downtown attractions.

 

Coming back for a visit in a couple weeks. Might go to North Lawndale to talk with community leaders about the fest. From what I've been told so far, the fest didn't keep good on their promise to restore the park last year, and it never fully recovered before the fest this year happened

Anyways, I'm looking forward to getting some Kuma's and Portillo's in my belly. Hopefully, I can catch a good show too.

 

Had Pequods last night. Worth the diarrhea this morning.