Lollapalooza music festival evacuated after storm

The Lollapalooza music festival was disrupted on Saturday when a fierce thunderstorm...

The Lollapalooza music festival was disrupted on Saturday when a fierce thunderstorm hit Chicago. 

Concert goers by the tens of thousands had to take shelter in parking garages as the storm blasted through. They were only allowed back into the lakefront venue after three hours, when the authorities were certain that the worst of the storm had passed. 

This caused the curfew for the sold-out three-day event to be extended to allow the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the headline act for that day, to perform as planned. 

Some acts, however, were cancelled, including Australian band Temper Trap and American rock band Alabama Shakes. 

The Lollapalooza website issued an official statement regarding the incident, saying that the organisers ‘made the decision to evacuate Grant Park in response to warnings from the National Weather Service’. 

It took them approximately 38 minutes to evacuate everyone in the venue including 60,000 concertgoers and 3,000 staff, artists, and vendors.

The promoter of Lollapalooza, C3 Presents, said through a spokesperson: “We want to thank the tens of thousands of festival-goers, staff, and artists who calmly and safely exited.” 

The organisers also took the opportunity to announce last Saturday that the next Lollapalooza festival will be held in Tel Aviv, Israel in August 2013, while other versions will also be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in March and in Chile in April.