Quicker repairs
The new deal announced in March mandates that C3 pay for any damage done to the park immediately after the festival each August. Instead of C3 staffers fixing things themselves, as they’ve done previously, the Park District will assess any damage and make the repairs, with C3 getting the bill.
Last year, a rainstorm combined with high foot traffic on the fest’s final day caused significant turf damage that took weeks to mend. C3 was criticized for its speed in making the repairs, for which it paid $800,000.
But Jones and Kelly have been discussing more long-term infrastructure improvements to the park, specifically in terms of drainage and soil retention — maintenance that Jones likened to “looking under the hood and fixing ’er up.”
“Lower Hutchinson Field has become a premier permitting space for the city,” Kelly said. “The [Avon] Breast Cancer Walk, the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon, the Chicago Marathon, now Lollapalooza — it’s a big gathering space, and that’s not go- ing to change. We’re going to take a serious look at how we can improve what’s going on at that site, how we can make it great for softball as well as for the semis that roll in and out for these larger events.”
Under its new terms with the city — a renegotiation that was initiated, Kelly and Jones said, by Jones and his partners, Charles Attal and Charlie Walker — C3 this year will begin paying all city and county sales and amusement taxes.
Through the previous arrangement, C3 was partnered not with the city itself but with the Parkways Foundation, a non-profit, fund-raising arm of the Park District, which handled all the city permits in exchange for an annual payment from Lollapalooza. Last year, according to the Park District, that amounted to $2.7 million on total ticket sales of $22.5 million.
Kelly said he expects the Park District to receive the same amount this year. The extra amount in city taxes, he said, will amount to about $1.5 million — higher than the $1.1 million estimate made in a September 2011 city inspector general’s report suggesting that the tax be applied to the festival.
“We had to up the ante,” Kelly said. “[C3] had to pay more for the event.”
As a result, so did fans. To cover the added expense of the taxes, the cost of three-day passes to Lollapalooza jumped $15, from $185 (early-bird) and $215 (regular) to $200 and $230, respectively. The event still sold out all three-day passes within a week before its performers were announced.