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Geneva City Council holding special meeting on three-day music festival

A proposed three-day music festival in July will face more scrutiny tonight when the Geneva City Council considers whether to allow it.

The council has called a special committee-of-the-whole meeting, to follow its regular meeting, to consider the application from Onesti Entertainment Corp. for MIGFest, Music in Geneva, July 17-19.

City administrators already have recommended denying one request: that the city pick up an estimated $11,000 tab for Geneva police to provide traffic control for the festival, which would be held at the Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve on the west bank of the Fox River.

They're also not thrilled that the event is proposed for the same weekend as the Geneva Cultural Arts Commission's annual Shakespeare in the Park presentation in Island Park, which is a few hundred yards upstream from Gunnar Anderson.

The commission is concerned about parking, since the play normally attracts about 900 people. Island Park does not have a parking lot, so patrons usually park at a nearby city lot near the sewage treatment plant, at Gunnar Anderson preserve or in city lots several blocks away.

There's also concern about noise from the concert carrying into Island Park.

Despite all that, Ron Onesti, owner of Onesti Entertainment and the Arcada Theater in St. Charles has been lining up entertainment. He has been selling tickets for a Whitesnake performance July 17 and is planning for Kool and the Gang and the Commodores to perform July 18. A country-music show is in the works for July 19.

In letters to Onesti, city administrators have questioned the amount of parking that would be needed for the festival. Between the government center, the forest preserve parking lot and the city and Metra lots near the railroad tracks, there are about 750 spaces. Onesti estimates more than 2,000 people would attend each day of his event.

The letters, along with the event application, were posted Friday afternoon on the city's website.

“We're really going to be encouraging people to take the train,” said Onesti, who's also hoping to obtain the use of the eastern parking lot at Fabyan Forest Preserve for people willing to walk and to arrange parking elsewhere near downtown Geneva and provide shuttle buses.

He's also talking with the arts commission about changing the times for his shows so that playgoers would have first crack at parking.

Onesti is seeking a liquor license to serve beer and wine at the event. The actual license-holder would be Michael Olesen, owner of Stockholm's pub in downtown Geneva.

Planning for the concerts began in December, at the request of some Geneva residents and government officials, Onesti said. Geneva Alderman Tom Simonian is one of the planners.

“The main reason to do this was because I was asked to bring (an event) to downtown Geneva,” Onesti said. “I am a big fan of what they are trying to accomplish.”

Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve is the best location, he said.

MIGFest would be similar to a series of concerts he has put on for two years in downtown Elgin, Onesti added.

  Ron Onesti of Onesti Entertainment Corp. is planning a three-day music festival in Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve called MIGFest. The proposal, however, has raised a number of concerns with Geneva leaders. Laura Stoecker/lstoecker@dailyherald.com, 2006
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