Chicago has a great music scene. If you are a Blues fan you will be in heaven. Venues like House of Blues, Blue Chicago and Shaw’s Crab House along with many others host live acts.

http://www.chicagobluesguide.com/ is a good place to start to find some gigs that fit in with your plans.

Chicago Music Festivals

If you possibly can however, go to the Chicago Blues Festival. This is a free 3 day event that takes place in Grant Park, normally the first weekend in June. There are several stages and it is brilliant – you can see some amazing musicians and the atmosphere is great.

For more info go to http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_blues_festival.html

Lollapalooza, Grant Park, Chicago

Lollapalooza is a major music festival held over three days the first weekend in August in Grant Park. The site is relatively compact so there is no camping which for me is a major bonus. As it is one of the few festivals held in a major city centre you can festival go all day and walk back to your hotel at the end of the night to enjoy the benefits of air conditioning and a real shower. If sitting round the campfire is an essential part of a festival for you this rather spoils things but if like me you loathe camping it is brilliant.

The only other thing to be aware of should you decide this is the answer to your festival going prayers, is that it can get very hot. We went three years in a row and experienced temperatures in the 30s with very high humidity. One year it was so hot that the fire brigade came and sprayed the crowd with water and they gave a free bottle of water away with every beer. I know if you have shivered through mud during the British ‘summer’ this may seem like no bad thing, but if you are the kind of person that wilts as soon as it gets hotter than 18 be careful. Also you will need to apply gallons of sunscreen, there isn’t much shade.

See http://www.lollapalooza.com for more info and tickets.