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I am the president of the social club at Saint Michael’s Church in Old Town. Our group had purchased lawn admissions to the show for 85 people (approximately ten percent of our membership). Our plan was to rendezvous at the Metra Clybourn platform and to take the 4:43 PM train to Ravinia. When I arrived at the station at 4:15 there were already hundreds of people gathered, and the crowd probably doubled by the time the train arrived. Many (perhaps the majority) of the people were unable to board the train, which had not been prepared with enough cars to accommodate the crowd. (Those who tried to board at Irving Park or any stops north probably never had a chance.) The next train did not arrive for an hour and 15 minutes; though I was lucky enough to get aboard, many of our group were not and thus were deprived of the opportunity to attend the concert. In hindsight, they were the lucky ones.
When we arrived at Ravinia, the people on our train and in the west parking lot were prevented from crossing the tracks and entering the Ravinia Festival grounds by the Metra train on the eastern of the two tracks, which arrived a few minutes before us and (for reasons I don’t know) didn’t depart for over ten minutes. As it rolled past, it revealed not a concert but a zoo, as thousands of people swarmed the entrance trying to find friends, purchase tickets, pick up tickets at will-call, etc. Due to the huge crowd at the Clybourn station, we were unable to connect with some of our members who had requested tickets, and with the commotion and confusion at the main entrance to the park, trying to find people was futile. We had no way of knowing if the tickets we left at will-call would be claimed, but we left them there just in case. Ultimately, we took a $200 loss on tickets that were never claimed, probably because those social club members could not get to the park.
