Popular music festivals are held all over Chicago throughout the summer. Some students get the chance to attend these highly anticipated festivals. Festivals like EDM Spring Awakening have artists Zedd, Hardwell, Tiesto, Diplo, and Jack Ü (Skrillex+Diplo). Held at Soldier Field from June 12 through 14, tickets range from $189 to $239. This will definitely be a huge event for EDM fans. For more mellow music fans, the Chicago Blues Festival will take place in Grant Park also June 12 through 14 with popular blues musicians Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Billy Branch, Eddy Clearwater, Syl Johnson, Zora Young, Clarence Carter, and Toronzo Cannon. This festival is less pricy than Spring Awakening as it has free entry. A new festival making its way to our city this summer is the Windy City LakeShake festival. Country artist Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley, and Florida Georgia Line are just a few of the headliners that’ll be there.This festival will hold its reins at First Merit Pavilion at Northerly Island from June 19 through 21 with tickets ranging from $200 to $300. A highly anticipated music festival in our neighboring city of Milwaukee is Summerfest with well known and very popular artists Kendrick Lamar, Kings of Leon, Lupe Fiasco, Mavis Staples, The Flaming Lips, Schoolboy Q, Ed Sheeran, Weird Al, Jane’s Addiction, Public Enemy, Charles Bradley, and Buddy Guy. Summerfest is highly anticipated because you get to see popular artist for only $12 and up to $90. Kicking off the big festivals is Piqniq on June 6. Their lineup includes Cage the Elephant, Bleachers, Catfish and the Bottlemen, and Joywave. Ticket prices range from $20 to $79. Anya Caples (9) will be attending Piqniq this summer and is looking forward to “the experience and being there with my friends and just creating memories.”

Closing out the summer are some of Chicago’s most popular music festivals like Pitchfork, Lollapalooza, and Riot Fest. This year, Pitchfork’s lineup includes Wilco, Sleater-Kinney, Chance the Rapper, and Future Islands. A few of these bands are local-based, which will definitely be worth the ticket fee. Tickets can range from $65 to $150. This years’ Lollapalooza lineup will include big musicians like Paul McCartney, Metallica, Sam Smith, Florence + the Machine, and Alabama Shakes.Tickets are already sold out, but you can get tickets off radio stations and a few resale websites. Last summer Evon Yao (11) was lucky enough to attend not only Spring Awakening but Lollapalooza as well, saying,“I like seeing my favorite artists perform live, dressing up for concerts, and being able to sing and dance with my friends. The experience of a music festival consumes the whole weekend, and all the events packed into just one weekend makes it one of the most memorable moments of summer.”Finally, the punk-rock festival Riot Fest will take place from September 11 through 13. Modest Mouse, Snoop Dogg, Run DMC, Tenacious D, and Kongos are a few of the bands headlining the festival this year. The second wave of bands has yet to be announced, but it is guaranteed that they will not disappoint in comparison to the already great lineup.Tickets range from $50 to $300, but with this lineup the price will be worth it.

With huge festivals like these Chicagoans are guaranteed to have a memorable and rockin’ summer, and as Evon says, “a weekend of carefreeness, good music, and positivity after a stressful year of school!!”