REVIEW / Is Riot Fest Actually Worth It?

BY ALYSSA MCNERNEY

Riot Fest 2019 was quite the experience. My boyfriend and I went on September 14th and 15th at Douglas Park in Chicago Illinois. I would’ve loved to have been able to go September 13th because the line-up included the Flaming Lips, Descendants, the Violent Femmes and many other phenomenal bands I would’ve loved to see.

September 14th

When we arrived on the first day, parking was slightly expensive, but it was never difficult to find parking which was quite nice. We then went to get our tickets at will call and the process was quite fast and easy. We got our bags checked (although they never looked in mine and they passed me along which is a little concerning) but otherwise, the entrance process was quite easy. Walking inside to Douglas Park, in the entranceway, there was what seemed like a carnival type feel where they had a couple of different carnival rides such as a Ferris wheel and a scrambler. There were a lot of carnival food stands/trucks near the entranceway. There was also plenty of merch tents in just the entranceway itself. One being for artist merch and the other for riot fest merch. There were various things to look at in just the entranceway itself but when walking around to the main area, it was a huge festival. Walking into the main area, there were 4 stages around the same vicinity, and one separated in the corner of the venue which was kind of hard to find. It seemed that only about two bands would play on stages at the same time, but I never saw all five stages being used at once.

The first band we wanted to see was Turnover; they were on the Rise stage which faced away from the Roots stage. We watched their full set. While they were on, The Story So Far was on the stage behind them but it was never a sound issue to be able to hear them on that specific stage, which was nice. Turnover has become one of my favorite bands, and they played a lot of newer singles they had just put out and a couple of older songs. It was mind-blowing to be able to finally see them live. After seeing them we went and explored the food trucks, where they had a whole street lined with up to 30 food trucks that offered various food options. They were quite thoughtful of food allergies and had enough food trucks there to accommodate most people. There was always enough room to move about and have space to breathe which isn’t always true for all venues. Even with such a large crowd, riot fest was still good about accommodating most people.

We grabbed some food and sat down near the Rise Stage, to watch The Struts. The Struts are an amazing band that reminds me of the old hair metal genre. They are quite an entertaining group. After their performance, we made our way to check out the vendors and tents set up near the back of the venue, it seemed to be around 30 tents. Each one offered various services/goods. We stopped at the Chicago Music Exchange tent and got a free hat and some bumper/laptop stickers and talked to them about music. There were even vendors to buy vinyl’s/Cd’s of bands playing at riot fest/ bands like the bands playing at riot fest. There was a ton of clothing vendors for local businesses. I’ve never seen such an array of vendors to check out before.

After checking out the vendors, we went to see Wu-Tang Clan at the Radicals stage. The Radicals stage was directly in front of the stage that Slayer was playing on at the same time. This is where one of my only issues with the festival comes up, where we could not always hear the performer on that stage if someone was playing directly behind it. It seemed to cut off the sound from the stage we were at. Other than that, it was crazy to be able to see Wu-tang Clan now in the year of 2019. My boyfriend was quite excited, he’s a huge fan. After watching Wu-tang Clan, we decided to leave for the night which became difficult because the largest crowd seemed to show up later at night. The first day we arrived was quite eventful and fun, it was a new experience to me to be at a festival that large.

September 15th

The second day, we went and saw The Beaches and immediately after, we went to see Village People around 2-3pm. Both shows were miraculous. The last day was just as crowded as the day before, where it slowly filled up the later it got. We hit up some more of the tents in between the sets and they had some artwork made from some of the bands playing the festival themselves and other artwork that could be bought which we thought was cool. There was also another tent where you could buy raffle tickets to be put in drawings to win a ton of different things such as tickets to riot fest next year along with signed posters and things from the bands. The other tents we checked out were where they had the water refill station since it was quite hot all weekend. It was sponsored by Pedialyte so not only did you get water refilled, you got free Pedialyte packets to help keep up electrolytes. After we checked out the tents, we went and saw Less Than Jake at the Rise Stage, my boyfriend being a huge Ska fan was quite excited. It seemed like they kept kind of the same genre’s days because Sunday there were many Ska bands. We stayed around that area and watched Streetlight Manifesto as well which was just as good. During Streetlight Manifesto, we went to the food trucks again and even around then when the festival started filling up more there weren’t long lines for food. After grabbing food, we went over to the Radicals stage to see the B-52’s which was an honor because it was their last Chicago show ever and they had a huge crowd. We finished the night out by seeing Taking Back Sunday who put on a great show. Leaving was not at all an issue. We bought our merch and easily got to our car and left within twenty minutes of exiting the venue.

Overall, Riot Fest 2019 was my first Riot Fest I’ve ever been to. It was one of the most organized festivals I’ve been to and nothing problematic seemed to go on. It didn’t seem like anyone went overboard with drinking; everything was pretty laid back. The performances were a blast to attend and I’m going to try to go again next year!