The tunes of Thee Sacred Souls, Courtney Barnett, and Guster have long left the music festival Out of Space, held in Skokie in late July, but the village’s economic development commission found that two days of the three-day festival had a higher turnout at its temporary home in Skokie than the festival’s home in Evanston.
Around 9,000 people attended the three-day music festival from July 26-28 at the Illinois Science + Technology Park, according to the village’s Economic Vitality Manager Rodney Tonelli, who also said the crowds boosted business at local restaurants. Attendance data from the festival shared with Skokie’s economic development commission showed that Skokie had higher attendance compared to when the festival was held in Evanston’s Canal Shores, where it originated, in 2022 and 2023. Attendance was higher in Evanston for Friday, and the Skokie festival did not include a Thursday event.
Due to renovation work at Canal Shores Golf Course, the festival temporarily moved from its usual Evanston home to the north field at Skokie’s Illinois Science + Technology Park. A Chicago Tribune review of the festival said the benefits of having the concert in Skokie were “room to stretch out, a family-friendly atmosphere, reasonably priced food and drink.” The Science + Technology Park is situated next to the Oakton stop on the CTA Yellow Line and the Skokie Valley trail for pedestrians and cyclists.
Skokie’s peak attendance day for Out of Space was Saturday, with just over 3,300 attendees coming to see Thee Sacred Souls, St. Paul and the Broken Bones and Jeremie Albino. Tonelli said that attendees largely came from Skokie and Evanston and also had many people from Chicago, Wisconsin and Indiana.
“Depending on what the bands are, it dictates a bit who comes and where they come from,” he said.
Tonelli said a foot traffic analysis found that 10% of the attendees came to the festival via train, which in turn also helped local businesses. Village Inn Pizzeria, Jameson’s Charhouse and L. Woods Tap & Pine Lodge saw a boost in business that weekend, he said.
Commissioner Barbara Carley, an executive from American Landmark Properties, which owns several buildings at the Illinois Science + Technology Park, said one of the advantages of having the event in Skokie was that it was in a bigger space that allowed food trucks to operate near the crowds while they also listened to the music. Carley said she is in preliminary talks about building a smaller, permanent stage in the quad center of the park, in part because the area where the Out of Space event took place was in a field prone to flooding. “They had trucks ready to pump water out of that field overlay (during the event), so there are some challenges with it, but they had a perfect weekend,” she said.
“We’d love to have some kind of ongoing event. If we can build the population up to the park, it’s a nice place to do that kind of thing,” Carley said.
