Spring Awakening To Return To Chicago’s Union Park

Spring Awakening Music Festival will feature more than 60 artists across four unique stages, with a variety of electronic music genres and subgenres. The lineup is coming soon, according to organizers, who promise new stage production, expanded interactive and immersive art installations, carnival rides, and many more experiential elements to be added making it the largest stage production Union Park has ever hosted. Public transportation to the fest will be more accessible than years past with the Ashland/Lake station (Green and Pink lines) stop located just North of the park or an Ashland bus route that runs all day. 

Last year’s Spring Awakening featured DJ Snake, GRiZ, Illenium, Zedd and many others June 7-9, with a site change. The lack of a 2020 announcement and the recent acquisition of React by LiveXLive, it was unclear if Spring Awakening would take place this year. 

In February it was announced Chicago-based React Presents had been acquired by “live social music network” LiveXLive for $2 million.  CEO Robert Ellin told Pollstar at the time “We think Spring Awakening is a magical event,” while the React Presents acquisition gets LiveXLive closer to the artists and managers to grow its core business, which includes live stream video of major events including Electric Daisy Carnival. “This acquisition will create powerful cross-marketing opportunities based on direct access to a new pool of active music fans,” Ellin said in a statement.

React Presents had been part of the LiveStyle portfolio of events.   Ellin says they intend to grow React’s club business as well, a core part of one of the largest promoters in the Midwest. Asked why LiveStyle would sell the division, Ellin says React was likely a small part of their overall business.

“I think it was a lot of work for a small asset to them, but for us it’s very worth it,” Ellin said, noting React’s $15 million in revenue generated for 2019.