Soggy Saturday reins in revenue at DuPage festivals

A nearly daylong deluge on July 4 may have had the greatest impact on the bottom lines of several holiday weekend festivals in DuPage County.

About 150,000 people attended Naperville's four-day Ribfest, but the event only tallied about 19,000 people on July 4, said organizers with the Naperville Exchange Club.

"Attendance figures were off Saturday, but by fireworks time we actually had a nice crowd," said Julie Lichter, Ribfest media liaison.

Usually, the event hosts about 200,000 people during its four-day run. This was also the first year of a city-imposed 39,000-person limit inside Knoch Park. The park reached capacity on Thursday and Sunday nights for headliners Heart and Huey Lewis, Lichter said.

In Lisle, about 40,000 people attended the four-day Eyes to the Skies festival. Organizers there said overall the event was successful, but they may seek to recoup some of their losses because of Saturday's weather through an insurance policy. One of the main stage performers was not allowed to play Saturday because of safety concerns, said Eyes to the Skies board Chairman Dave Van Kampen.

"If we could have had Sunday's weather on Saturday, we would've been great," Van Kampen said. "But we were also above attendance projections on Thursday and Friday."

Festival organizers said revenue figures from events won't be available for weeks, but most were already expecting less than previous years because of the poor economy.

Law enforcement agencies also took in less business than in years past. Naperville police reported no arrests at Ribfest, but cited several people for illegally parked cars.

"There were a couple shoving matches, but nobody elected to file charges," said Cmdr. Greg Waitkus. "A couple people had to be escorted out of the park and taken home safely. We made sure they were with somebody sober or we called them a cab."

Waitkus believes the capacity controls the city put on Ribfest this year helped keep problems down.

"Some of the design changes that were made helped make a difference," he said. "We didn't have the compression issues at the front of the stage we've had in the past, so people had a lot more room."

Lombard police arrested six people over the five days of Taste of Lombard. Deputy Chief Dane Cuny said officers made one drunken driving arrest, two people were nabbed for throwing a lit firework into a crowd, one youngster was arrested for underage drinking and two other men were arrested for "beating up a car." Cuny said the two men were drunk and became angry with the driver of the car for driving too close to them or not stopping as they passed by.

"You have a lot of people attending over five days, so the fact that we only had some minor incidents is a positive," Cuny said. "Generally, people were well-behaved."

Lisle Police Sgt. Randall Johnson said officers arrested one man who had an outstanding warrant from another police agency and four juveniles for marijuana possession at Eyes to the Skies.