This festival was so much fun but also very tiring! I only did one day, the last day, and I have no idea how people do all four days!!! By the time my friends and I were walking back to our hotel, around midnight, we were ready to collapse. But it was oh so worth it!!
We chose to only do one day because, well money for one but the main reason we chose the last day was because Ariana Grande was the main headliner that night and my friend Kyra and I have seen her on every tour she's ever done so we figured why not see her at one of the biggest music festivals of the year for her Sweetener/Thank U, Next tour!?
To start the day off we woke up and all started getting ready and left our hotel around 11:30 am and headed to Starbucks for a quick breakfast and coffee for my friends, I got tea😋 and then we continued our walk to Grant Park where Lolla is held. We were about a 20min walk away and it was still the morning time and Chicago just always has a nice breeze with it being right on the lake, so it was nice summer morning walk. Once we got to the gate of Lolla my friend Kyra and her husband Rob had to find the booth to buy a replacement entrance band because Kyra left hers back home in good old' Ohio so while they did that my other friend, Payton, and I headed into to Lolla to scope it out.
We got there around 1pm and it wasn't that busy yet, so we just decided to walk around and scout out the festival and see what all it has to offer! You can bring your own water bottle and they have free water refill stations which I think is awesome and saves you a lot of money drinking wise because all we drank that whole day was water except when we got Cupcake Wine freezes but even then it was so hot that after I had a few sips I had to go back to water.
Once Kyra and Rob got in and we all met up we went to where American Eagle was set up and got to take a cute little quiz that tells you what room you "belong" to, each room is sorted for different personalities, and we all ended up getting the yellow room, except for Rob, he got purple. From how he described the purple room is it had purple neon lights and old TVs everywhere. The yellow room, which you'll see in a photo below, had yellow neon lights, smiley faces lining the walls and yellow tire swing for you to sit on. Each room also had a free temporary tattoo station and you got a free fanny pack as well which definitely came in handy for later use! After you leave your room and get your fanny pack you could go upstairs and decorate it while listening to some live music.
After that we decide it was time for lunch and so we decided to grab some Chipotle, which is always great, but I wish I would've tried something there that I couldn't get back home like the booth that was selling Grilled Mac and Cheese sandwiches🤤 hopefully another time! Then we moved onto to shopping and chose the indoor, air-conditioned building because DUH! AIR CONDITIONING! Did I mention its hot in August in Chicago? Once we finished shopping, we did some more walking around and found Dean Lewis performing so we stayed and watched his set for a while and danced a little and then found this awesome wall that was just filled with different kinds of graphics that represented Lollapalooza! That’s probably my favorite photos I got of myself that day (picture below).
Once we finished with Dean Lewis, we decided it was time to head to the stage area where Ariana would be performing in 5 hours. Yep that's right! We got to her stage 5 hours before she even came on. We wanted to be as close as we could since the whole festival is GA! Now it’s not like we just stood around waiting for her to come on, two people performed before her. First was a band I had never heard of called The Revivalists and they were pretty damn good! I'm really glad I got to catch their set. After then came Kacey Musgraves and, along with a few other country artists, she one of the only country artists I actually don't mind listening to! She's so carefree and pretty much a country hippie and I freaking love it!! When Kacey was finished with her last song, we moved a little closer to the front and then right before Ariana came on the entire crowded pushed forward and then we were packed in like sardines! Which yeah it was nighttime now so at least the sun wasn't shining on us anymore, but it was still sweltering hot being pushed up against that many people!
Ariana did AMAZING, as usual, but I only lasted a little more than half of her set so I looked to Kyra and Rob standing next to me and told them I couldn't handle being next to this many people anymore and that I was going to go meet up with Payton, who had left before Ariana came to go find her friend. So I started making my way out of the Ariana's crowd and decided to go out to the left on an angle because I knew I wasn't going to get out if I went straight back. I kid you not, it took me 2 and 1/2 full songs to get out of the crowd so I can't even imagine how long it would've taken to get out if I decided to go straight back. Once I got free from the Arianators, I called Payton and we met up in the middle of Lolla which is where the Buckingham Fountain is. We got some more water and then just hung out and waited for Kyra and Rob which didn't take long because they decided to leave the crowd not long after I did. So, from a far we watched Ariana continue her set with an amazing fire work show and then started to head out of Lolla with the rest of the festival goers.
There are so many people that walk back to their hotels or homes after Lolla that police are stationed everyone to help with crossing and in some cases they blocked off entire streets for us to be able to walk down those without having to worry about ceros traffic. On the way back to our hotel we decided to stop in a gas station and grab some food and drinks to take back to the hotel. Once we got back we snacked, showered and passed out in our beds!
The experience over all was like no other and very exhausting but I would definitely do this again! Just maybe not get so close to the headliner next time and just enjoy them from afar which is just as fun when you’re with some great friends!
I hope you guys enjoyed this post; I know it’s from last summer but I just enjoyed this trip so much I still wanted to share it with you guys! And who knows, with the coronavirus, when I'll be able to travel again. So, for now enjoy posts about past trips. I have a few more to share with you guys so keep your eyes open for those.
Positive vibes. Positive Mind. Courtney✌🏻
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