Summer Smash Festival will return for summer 2023 in a new location — according to an announcement Wednesday, the three-day festival of hip hop music is relocating to SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview.
Dates are June 23-25, with music lineup and ticket sales coming soon via TheSummerSmash.com. Concerts will play on two mainstages, including one in the 25,000+ capacity stadium, the other on turf elsewhere on the campus, plus on a third performance stage. Summer Smash is put on by concert promoter SPKRBX and media company Lyrical Lemonade.
Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash has played the last four years in Douglass Park on Chicago’s West Side, and along with Riot Fest has been criticized as one of the big summer music events that have barricaded the park from the surrounding community.
Riot Fest has announced dates of Sept. 15-17 for 2023, but no other details.
The newly expanded SeatGeek Stadium Campus has already played home to some major music festivals, including last summer’s Sacred Rose and North Coast Music Festivals by Chicago-based Collectiv Presents. There were complaints of sound bleed between stages at Sacred Rose, but otherwise the venue has proven to be a fine fest location, with its plentiful turf fields both immune from mud and dust and not feeling like one big parking lot.
Also in live music news, Lollapalooza has teased that it will announce its lineup March 21, Pitchfork on March 20.