Naperville's India Day Festival reduced to parade only due to security requirements

Chicago Tribune

6 hours ago

The annual India Day Festival & Concert, which for years has brought large crowds to Naperville, will be scaled back this year, organizers have announced.
Usually a day-long affair featuring live entertainment and a cultural festival at Naperville's Rotary Hill, the free event will be reduced to only a parade when held Aug. 10, organizers said in a Facebook post.
The decision to curtail festivities was attributed to heightened costs and reduced funding, the post said.
Presented by Indian Community Outreach, the festival commemorates Aug. 15, 1947, the day India won its freedom from British rule. Launched in 2015, the event has grown into one of the largest Indian American festivals of its kind across the country, according to Krishna Bansal, event founder and organizer.
Cost increases were partly the result of new city-mandated security requirements, Bansal said. Namely, requirements mandating the use of fencing around the perimeter of the event and metal detectors at controlled entry and exit points and dictating that attendees could bring only clear bags onto the grounds, he said.
Implementing those rules would have taken a 'mammoth amount of effort,' Bansal said. '(It would) take a huge amount of resources as well as cost to do that.'
Sponsors primarily fund the festival, he said.
Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said the security requirements aren't really new. Rather, they're 'something we've really been pushing towards for the past few years and are finally getting traction,' he said.
It's a matter of public safety, Arres said.
'Outdoor events are big, big targets for those looking to do bad things,' he said, 'and they're increasingly vulnerable to mass violence. … (These recommendations) keep these events safe and actually can deter threats before they can occur.'
They're also in line with what other large-scale events in town — Last Fling and Halal Fest, for instance — have been doing for a number of years, Arres said.
'We're not asking them (to do) anything different than any other progressive agencies and cities are doing because these are the best practices for these big-scale events,' he said.
Asked if Indian Community Outreach plans to bring back the event in full in the future, Bansal said, 'We are not looking to cancel the event.' It's just a matter of how and where it will move forward, he said. They want to continue holding the event in Naperville but if doing so isn't feasible, 'we'll have to look around and see where we can do this effectively,' he said.
'This event is immensely popular,' he said. 'People want to have this event. We will continue with what we have built.'
Changes to the festival follow last month's announcement that there would be no Naperville Salute this summer. The annual Fourth of July celebration, also held at Rotary Hill, was canceled to preserve the long-term health of both the event and the charitage organization behind it, organizers said. It was scheduled to take place from June 27-29 but now only the Naperville Responds for Veterans Ruck March will be held.
Both cancellations come in the wake of Naperville Ribfest, another of the city's longstanding summer celebrations, permanently ending last year.