On July 13, tickets went on sale online for Drive-In Fest, a drive-in music festival being held at Soldier Field on August 22. A group of Black Chicago-based event promoters — AfroTrak, Civilized Lifestyle and Sigma Chris — are teaming up to bring to life Chicago’s first large-scale concert since the March 21 shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The socially distanced Drive-In Fest is headlined by Lloyd and features Pleasure P of Pretty Ricky, Bobby Valentino and hometown hip-hop collective Do or Die. The event will also feature sets from Chicago-based DJs Sean Mac and LMS.
The drive-in festival concept is a unique innovation that could only be borne out of the current stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, where Illinois began reopening last month. However, since then, the number of positive coronavirus cases in Illinois have started to trend upwards. Because of this, precautions are still critical to public health. Chicago has been in Phase 4 since June 26, with the plan being to “gradually resume industry guidelines for reopening.” Since the start of Phase 4, Soldier Field’s parking lots have already hosted Chicago Park District drive-in movie nights, complete with social distancing precautions.
“In regards to concerts and major events, they’ve all been pushed back to next year. So a lot of my planning in my business right now looks like planning for 2021,” said Mike Orie, event curator and founder of AfroTrak, an event production company with offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
“Everyone’s trying to figure out how to navigate a smaller capacity, how to generate revenue and how to balance both a safe and secure environment and survive and thrive within everything that’s going on,” said Orie.
I spoke to Orie about how the idea for Drive-In Fest came to be, how they plan to maintain a safe environment for concert goers and how he has navigated the COVID-19 pandemic as a full-time event promoter.