Paz Yepez, 22, didn’t expect Metra’s BNSF line to be that busy during Lollapalooza weekend. But heading downtown on the festival’s second day, Aug. 1, Yepez stressfully searched past jersey-wearing teenagers and varying colors of hydration packs for any remaining seat in her train car.
Yepez, visiting from Miami, had taken a rideshare to the festival the day before from her cousin’s house in Berwyn. On Friday, she was heading into the city to explore Chicago’s Riverwalk and Chinatown.
“Wow. You know everyone here’s going to Lolla,” she said, looking into the packed, chattering car she struggled to find a seat in. If Yepez had known the city’s festival energy extended to its suburbs — turning the ride there into its own social experience — she would’ve “loved” to take the train there, she said.
Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival July 31 to Aug. 3 brought thousands of people like Yepez to the South Loop. While some traveled from across the world, many came from suburbs, catching a train to see popular artists, including Tyler the Creator, Olivia Rodrigo, Korn and Sabrina Carpenter.
While not every bus and train held an overwhelming crowd, CTA, Metra and Pace ridership “has increased each year” for Lollapalooza, according to Regional Transit Authority executive director Leanne Redden.
On Friday, Yepez eventually scored a seat on the inbound BNSF Line train. But a family of five searched in vain for their spot. Their two young kids walked wearily throughout the car.
“I don’t want to keep going,” the younger girl said to her father, rebalancing herself in the moving car after each bump and sway. The family traveled the car twice looking for a spot to hold them together.
As the train progressed eastward, popular stops, including the Hinsdale and Brookfield stations, added masses of festivalgoers.
A group of girls with green wristbands got on at the Downers Grove Main Street station, and repeated the family’s vain search. As they turned toward the cart they came from, one friend said “this feels like the walk of shame.”
At Union Station, a flood of people spilled from the train’s doors — almost as if a concert was about to begin below the station. As herds of people split off, additional Metra employees surrounded the station’s entrance. Police and K-9s were stationed nearby.
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“It’s more about crowd control” now, a Metra employee stationed outside of track eight said.
Lollapalooza Metra ridership linked to Lollapalooza was up from previous years as the 2025 festival got underway Thursday and Friday.
The festival weekend provides a “significant increase in revenue,” said Metra director of communications Michael Gillis.
Though ridership numbers from the weekend were not yet available, Gillis said last year’s Lollapalooza Thursday marked the highest festival ridership numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing 227,000 riders back to Metra trains.
While seven Metra lines were equipped with extra cars and train times for the festival, Gillis said, at the busiest times, some trains were standing room only. Some, such as the BNSF train Yepez was riding, were so busy that conductors didn’t check tickets.
A conductor who operated Friday’s train and who did not want to be named, said he was called in to work that day. Although he wasn’t planning to work a busy festival day, “many people are calling off this weekend,” he said.
Apart from Lollapalooza, the conductor said the BNSF line gets much busier for St. Patrick’s Day, when “way more people,” filter into Union Station from the city’s suburbs.
Although the called-in conductor said he is “not the one cleaning,” riders traveling to and from big events sometimes get sick — typically from alcohol, dehydration and other festival-related reasons. Those messes, a “problem,” he said, get cleaned “when someone gets to it.”