Lolla in Chile

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November 19, 2010

Lollapalooza expands to Chile in 2011

Lollapalooza, a fixture in Grant Park since 2005, will expand next year to Santiago, Chile, promoters will announce Friday.

Lollapalooza’s promoters, Texas-based C3 Presents and the William Morris Agency, have been exploring additional locations worldwide for several years. Santiago was chosen because it boasts a similar urban setting to the Chicago festival, with easy access to hotels, restaurants and clubs. The festival will be held April 2-3, 2011, at O’Higgins Park, with capacity of 100,000 people a day, promoters say.

A partnership was struck with Chilean promoter Sebastian De La Barra of Lotus Producciones, with the aim of fostering a “musical foreign exchange” between the two festivals, said Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell in a statement.

“Local talent is essential to rounding out the experience of a Lollapalooza,” Farrell said. Some of the Chilean artists booked for the Santiago festival will also be invited to next year’s Chicago Lollapalooza, he said.

It will mark the first overseas location for Lollapalooza since it was born in 1991 as a traveling festival that provided a showcase for alternative-rock artists. It was transformed into a destination festival based in Chicago in 2005, and has drawn 225,000 or more people in each of the last several years to Grant Park.

The headliners for Lollapalooza Chile will be announced at a later date.

greg@gregkot.com

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