chicagotribune.com
Hot ticket could burn
Radiohead show will test plans for new Grant Park site
By Robert K. Elder
Tribune staff reporter
June 23, 2001
A concert set for Aug. 1 in Grant Park by the white-hot rock group Radiohead will mark an unprecedented experiment in outdoor admission-only concerts on Chicago's "front lawn."
Producers will construct a temporary fenced venue for the show, which could attract fans who were unable to get a ticket.
The concert by the British quintet sold 16,000 tickets in four minutes last Saturday (as fast as the system can sell tickets), evidence of a great demand among fans to see the group, whose computer-heavy art rock sound is credited with transforming contemporary music. Whether the show will mark a successful new way of producing such events—traditionally held in amphitheaters or sports stadiums—is open to question, depending on how traffic, security and crowd control outside the concert is handled.
Some fans who didn't get tickets are already vowing to come and listen outside, even as officials at Jam Productions are discouraging such plans.
Whatever the outcome, the concert, scheduled for Arvey Field south of Balbo Drive, telegraphs the Chicago Park District's Grant Park Framework Plan, which allows for an increasing number of concerts to be held as the park transforms in the next decade.
"We'll be looking at things like parking [and] traffic to see if events like this will jam up traffic on Lake Shore Drive," said Robert Megquier, director of planning and development for the Chicago Park District. "We want to see if people will come, if it's a desirable venue for concerts. We think it is."
Since Radiohead's Grammy win for best alternative music performance in 1997 for the album "OK Computer," it has released two of the most anticipated albums of 2001, "Kid A" and "Amnesiac," which debuted at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, on Billboard magazine's music sales chart. Radiohead only played three North American dates in support of "Kid A," and this will be its first show in Chicago in more than three years.
"Tickets are sold out, and if you don't have a ticket please don't bother coming," said Jerry Mickelson, a Jam partner. "We're discouraging people from showing up."
For now, Park District officials are unsure what to expect.
Sgt. Robert Cargie of the Chicago Police Department reports that the normal number of police details, including bike and mounted units, will be on hand.
Under the Grant Park Framework Plan, Hutchinson Field north of Arvey Field would eventually be transformed into a multipurpose concert venue.
"Some people think it's too far away (from the North Loop), but with 5 million people visiting Museum Campus each year, it's obviously not too far away," said Megquier.
Issues such as crowd control and noise management will also be examined for future land use plans.
"The stage will be set up so the sound goes out into the lake," said Mickelson. "You don't see sites like this that are actually this pretty and able to be used for this kind of event."
Mickelson described his working relationship with city officials as "very professional," and added, "The city really does work well when they want to make an event happen, when they want to help."
Although Radiohead's unconventional tour of Europe was held in giant tents, the band had to scrap plans for similar shows in the United States.
"We have done as much as we possibly could to take control playing in outdoor/interesting venues when we were told the tents weren't 'feasible,'" Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke told the Tribune in an e-mail interview. "As far as we were concerned, it got so bad at one point that we talked about forgetting touring in the U.S. until we could find a way to do it completely on our terms. But then they [corporations] really would have won, and a lot of people other than us would have been upset."
Not everyone is happy with the choice of Arvey Field. Graphic designer Joel Kivett, 23, tried to get tickets through a lottery on Radiohead's Web site and through a presale promotion through MTV.com and Ticketmaster.com. Still, after taking a day off work to get tickets from the online presale, Kivett still came up empty.
"People have been thirsty for a Radiohead concert for a long time in this area even before the new album. ... It's going to be a huge event," Kivett said. "I was surprised at how difficult it was to get tickets, having just gone through this with U2, which was difficult but I got tickets."
Kivett is considering paying up to $130 from a ticket broker, although he will sit outside the show as a last resort. "If it came down to camping on the lawn, there's no question that I'll be doing that; there will be a lot of people doing that anyway." Kivett said that at least six of his friends have similar plans.Radiohead opened its U.S. tour in Houston on Tuesday night with a sold-out concert at Woodlands Pavilion.
"There's a tremendous amount of interest. On our Web site last week, it was the most requested tour. There is more than three times the interest on that tour than any other tour we've got," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar, the weekly trade magazine covering the concert business.
Arvey Field is one of a few "field shows" being held in the U.S. Others include Meadow at Stone Mountain, Ga., near Atlanta; Boston's Suffolk Downs racetrack; and two shows in Jersey City's Liberty State Park.
"It's pretty bold because the cost of doing that kind of thing is a lot higher than going into a conventional facility where all the amenities are already there," said Bongiovanni.
The band considered seven sites in the city and suburbs, including Cricket Hill near Montrose Harbor. Ultimately, Arvey Field met its security, access and parking needs. Although the ParkDistrict encourages people to use public transportation, parking will be available in the east and south lots of Soldier Field.Jam will bring in portable toilets, security and fences for the 300,000-square-foot area. Although Jam has produced other outdoor and field events, the Radiohead show will be its first in Arvey Field. |
