Doing business around Pitchfork Music Festival

Jul 21, 2012 18:17

Pitchfork is one of the most popular music festivals in Chicago. I've never actually attended one, but, thanks to an internship a local music magazine a few years ago, I got to spend a lot of time outside of it. As an intern, my duties included handing out copies of said magazine outside music festivals. Sometimes, we got concert passes.. but that's a story for another post.



Where there are events, there are always scalpers trying to sell tickets and vendors trying to sell stuff. But what make the vendors outside Pitchfork so interesting was the location. Pitchfork is held at the park on the east side of Ashland Avenue, which is what I like to call West Side's unofficial Gentrification Line. With a few exceptions, artistic lofts, expensive condos and upscale boutiques pretty much stop dead west of Ashland. Instead, you get affordable housing cooperatives, mixed-income housing, some working-class pockets and a few stores here and there. As far as majority-black West Side neighborhoods go, Near West Side* is actually decent - violent crime and are much lower than anything further west, social agencies work their ass off to help locals find employment and there is lots of nice-looking housing. But that doesn't usually matter. Unless they want to watch a game at United Center, people who live east of Ashland tend to avoid everything west of Ashland like a plague.

But during Pitchfork, the division blurs. Enterprising Near West Siders (and people from other neighborhoods) position themselves around festival grounds and sell their wares. And the people who come to Pitchfork buy them.


This being the middle of summer, a lot of them simply sold water bottles.




The competition for customers was so intense that I've seen Festival attendees trying to haggle for price (and occasionally succeeding)



Some vendors went a few steps further




On a hot summer day, water bottles tend to be a sure seller. But this time, Chicago weather gods decided to throw everyone a curve ball. On the Saturday those pictures were taken, the city faced bursts of rain. And I do mean bursts - each one lasted 10-20 minutes, then stopped long enough to make people complacent and start right up again with no warning whatsoever.

Undeterred, many vendors decided to take advantage of the opportunity and improvised.




In between bursts, you got a lot of scenes like this




Some vendors sold more souvenir-type stuff. A woman who asked me not to take any pictures of her wares set up an entire stand work of T-shirts. Other vendors were more accommodating




Some people were giving sample CDs away. I got a Chicago Pride Parade themed remix CD from a pair of very rain-drenched interns. A few volunteers from Greater Chicago Church were handing out gospel music and talking to passerbies about Jesus.

[I thought of I had a picture of the volunteer, but looks like I was wrong. Instead, have a picture that includes the interns with Pride-themed CDs (they're on the right)]




The area around Pitchfork also saw lots of people advertising other music festivals - both in Chicago and in the area Great Lakes region in general




Interestingly, the area around Pitchfork attracted a few artistic types. Drummer Jeff Austin played to the arriving crowds, switching locations several times




At one point, one of the locals joined Austin and tried to rap to the tune of his drumming. It didn't quite work - and frankly, the guy's freestyling was competent at best - but it was still an interesting experience.




Another guy (not pictured) was closer to the intersection, advertising a series of open mic/improv events. And, closer to the fence, artist Daniel Ireland sold his paintings and keychains




There were, of course, some old-fashioned ticket scalpers (he's the one in the white shirt):




On a sadder note, I ran into a woman who was trying to collect money to reopen the Jane Addams Hull House Association facilities. The association provided social services at the Near West Side for 120 years, but it shut down due to financial difficulties. Since most people were only there for the music, the response was lackluster at best, but that didn't deter her in the slightest.

I wound up giving a few dollars.

In retrospect, I wish I would have pitched this story to the Chicago Journal. The vendors at Pitchfork are creative, enthusiastic and resourceful, and it would have been interesting to interview some of them properly. I didn't pitch it because I already had two stories to submit. But one story wound up falling through, so I could have easily pitched this instead...

Oh well. Maybe next year.

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*General rule of thumb when it comes to that part of Chicago - if it's gentrified, it's West Loop, if it's not gentrified, it's Near West Side.

chicago west side, non-fiction, events, photography, chicago, society

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