Cleanup Costs For Lollapalooza Balloon To Highest Amount Since 2011
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Cleanup costs for Lollapalooza amounted to more than $645,000 this year – the highest amount since 2011.
The cost this year to fix up Grant Park after the music festival, down to dollars and cents, was $645,133.66, according to Chicago Park District spokeswoman Michele Lemons.
For comparison, the cost to clean up after Lollapalooza in 2016 was $453,000 – which was itself nearly double the cost of about $236,000 in 2015.
In 2016, the higher cleanup cost was attributed to extensive damage from the crowds and heavy rains, and an added day of music for the festival's 25th anniversary. There was no rain during the festival this year.
In 2014, the cost for restoration was $266,000.
The record restoration cost was incurred in 2011, when it took approximately two months to complete $1 million worth of repairs to fields that were wrecked by the combination of three inches of rain and 300,000 people trampling the grass.
That year, conditions in Grant Park after the festival were described as a "post-Woodstock scene." The lawn at Grant Park's Hutchinson Field was left a mess of muddy and stagnant water, stale beer, and garbage, with seagulls everywhere.
The four-day music festival was held in early August this year. City officials said during the festival, 89 people were taken to hospitals during the first three days of the festival, largely due to alcohol-related problems.
A 24-year-old man suffered a medical emergency on the night of Saturday, Aug. 3 and later died at the hospital. He was identified as Benjamin Seto of Falls Church, Virginia.
Further information on the medical emergency was not provided.
Authorities said 23 people were arrested during the first three days of the festival, mostly on drug-related charges.
There was also one gun arrest near Lollapalooza on the evening of Friday, Aug. 2 -- but not on the festival grounds. An undercover Chicago Police officer found three men running near the 11th Street Bridge and saw one of the men take out a gun and throw it under a bush, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
Another man in the group picked up the gun and was arrested by police after a chase, the OEMC said. A fully loaded 9mm gun was recovered.
Ten other people received city citations at Lollapalooza; mostly for trespassing, and one for illegal use of a drone.
