Boxoffice Insider: Lollapalooza & Chicago– A 30-Year Dance

Extraordinarily Impressive:
Timothy Hiatt / Getty Images – Extraordinarily Impressive:
The scene from Lollapalooza 2014, which reported $28.8 million grossed.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of “lollapalooza” is “one that is extraordinarily impressive” – a good starting point for describing the annual Chicago music event that occurs in the early days of August. But add “superstar headliners, 170-plus bands, eight stages and one of the largest music festivals in North America” and you’re close to a good definition of Lollapalooza.

Like many festivals, this year’s event – which ran from July 29 through Aug. 1 at Chicago’s Grant Park – returned with much anticipation and excitement after the dire effects of COVID-19 on the live industry last year. The pandemic caused Lollapalooza’s only cancellation since first being staged as a weekend event in the Windy City in 2005. But the festival’s origins – and strong ties to Chicago – stretch back further than that.

This year marks 30 years since Lollapalooza’s first multiple-artist North American tour hit the road. Perry Farrell, the frontman of Jane’s Addiction, conceived the idea of a festival tour with his band as the first headliner. The tour launched in the summer of 1991, when its lineup included Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails and the Ice-T-fronted metal band Body Count playing mainly outdoor amphitheater dates during July and August.

Pollstar’s box office archives include reported sales figures from 23 performances on that 1991 tour, booked at venues in 17 U.S. cities and one Canadian market. The combined sold-ticket count from all shows hit 391,899 for a gross totaling $8.9 million – about $17.6 million today, accounting for inflation.

Chicago fans turned out in the largest numbers for that first tour, showing up 30,152 strong. The World Music Theatre (now Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre) in the suburb of Tinley Park, which had opened the previous summer, hosted the performance Aug. 3, 1991. It is the fourth-highest attendance recorded at the amphitheater for a single performance. The second Lollapalooza tour in 1992 played the same Chicago shed and topped the first year’s count by 524 tickets. The amphitheater continued to be the Chicago-area venue booked on all but one of the remaining festival tours.

Lollapalooza toured in North American cities for seven consecutive summer seasons but went on hiatus after 1997. Then in 2003, Farrell brought it back with Jane’s Addiction again heading up the bill and, like the 1991 trek, 23 shows from that summer are stored in the archives. Attendance totaled 323,694 with a gross of $13.8 million ($20.1 million today). After a canceled 2004 trek, the next year marked the transition from a multiple-city package tour to the Lollapalooza we know today held at Grant Park, the festival’s North American home for 16 years.

Box office tallies from the Chicago Lollapalooza festivals were reported to Pollstar from 2005 through 2014 by C3 Presents, longtime producer of the event. The archives show that grosses from the two-day 2005 festival topped out at $2.9 million (a $4 million value now) with attendance of about 30,000 each day, while the 2014 event – with Eminem leading the pack of artists – saw grosses topping $28.8 million (now $33 million). Daily attendance had also risen to about 100,000 by 2014 with the festival still spanning three days (Aug. 1-3). It moved to four days in 2016 in celebration of the event’s 25th anniversary. This year’s event will also feature a four-day schedule.

Twenty years after the first tour, Lollapalooza expanded its scope in 2011 as the producers began staging festivals in other countries. The Lollapalooza brand has spread to Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Sweden, France and Germany.

Ticket sales data from Lollapalooza Argentina, held in Buenos Aires, was reported in 2014. The two-day April event realized $10.7 million with attendance recorded at about 50,000 a day. Lollapalooza Chile in Santiago grossed $16.8 million in the same year with daily attendance about 5,000 more than in Buenos Aires. Brazil’s Lollapalooza held in São Paulo was reported 2014-19 with a $23.4 million take in 2018 the highest gross.