Lollapalooza 2025: What we saw — and heard — at the 4-day music festival at Grant Park
This year's festival showcased an impressive blend of breakthrough acts and established favorites, with headliners like Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Tyler, the Creator. It was an exciting year for artists who've found their creative stride, from Grammy-nominated R&B powerhouse Durand Bernarr to genre-defying sensation Amaarae to mega breakout rapper Doechii, a hip hop superstar in the making.
Here's what we saw — and heard.
Day 4 opened in Grant Park under sunny skies, lower air quality alerts and a final lineup of music across the festival's seven main stages.
Headliners were Sabrina Carpenter, making a day-closing stand for Lolla's strong female lineup on the T-Mobile stage, and New York rapper A$AP Rocky on the Bud Light. It's been nearly 10 years since A$AP Rocky last played Lollapalooza.
Other notable artists for the day included Finneas, the singer first famous in 2016 for teaming with sister Billie Eilish; Dominic Fike; a second Lolla for the Latin and jazz-infused indie band The Marías; and two concerts by Rebecca Black, the first a DJ set on the Perry's stage. Read more here.
Clear skies, lake breeze. Headliners for Lollapalooza Day 3 were more of a trio, with Australian electronic group Rüfüs Du Sol closing the day on the T-Mobile stage, K-pop girl group TWICE on the Bud Light and singer Mk.gee commanding his own strong following for his Saturday-capping set on the smaller Grove stage.
Other artists Saturday included indie-pop singer Clairo, Young Miko, Two Friends, Marina, Doechii and JPEGMAFIA. The Chicago Youth Symphony closed the Tito's Handmade Vodka stage Saturday evening. Plus there was the surprise addition of Chance the Rapper with a 15-minute set on the Perry's stage at 5:50 p.m. Chance has a new album, 'Star Line,' due out on Aug. 15.
TWICE, the first-ever K-pop girl group to anchor the festival, drew K-pop fans sporting trademark accessories inspired by their favorite idols — bright colors, fur armwarmers, hair tinsel and baseball card-sized photos of their TWICE favorites.
'You can definitely tell when someone's here for a certain singer,' said Bridget Sikorski, 20. Read more here.
Friday was Olivia Rodrigo day at Lollapalooza as the festival opened for Day 2 in Chicago's lakefront Grant Park.
Rodrigo is the T-Mobile mainstage headliner to close out the night, on the opposite end from metal band Korn on the Bud Light stage.
There was a sea of Rodrigo's signature purple at the T-Mobile by noon on Friday. Some of her most dedicated fans, many wearing purple cowboy hats, made it a point to line up early to get the best view. Read more here.
Lollapalooza opened Thursday in Grant Park for its annual four days of crowds and music, with a lineup through Sunday heavy on female artists — Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are both end-of-day headliners, with Gracie Abrams and Clairo also among the early crowd favorites.
Official headliners for Day 1 were Tyler, the Creator and Luke Combs, who closed out the night on the T-Mobile and Bud Light stages, respectively. Combs made Lollapalooza history as the Chicago festival's first-ever country music festival closer.
At the main gates at Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive, concertgoers got up with the sun to be first in the entrance chutes before the festival opened at 11 a.m.
Siblings Jacob Fuentes and Sofia Pogue traveled from Texas; this was the first concert ever for Sofia, 13, they said. Tyler, the Creator is her favorite artist. 'I like a lot of music but I feel like I like (Tyler's) the most,' she said. Read more here.
Lollapalooza can be seen as a safe haven — a place where music lovers go to catch all their favorite artists in one place. But along with that excitement comes crowds that can swell to outsized numbers for more popular artists, at a time when crowd safety has taken on a new sense of importance.
Some of that awareness this summer is due to the documentary 'Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy,' which was released on Netflix in June and quickly became popular. The documentary details the events leading up to the crowd crush that killed 10 people at rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival in Houston in November 2021. Read more here.
For the second year in a row, Lollapalooza will power its largest stage with a hybrid battery system, marking a growing trend of big-name music festivals transitioning away from diesel-based generators.
When the Chicago staple introduced its hybrid battery-powered stage in 2024, it became the first major U.S. festival to power its main stage with a battery system, which supplements the stage's generators with energy stored from the electric grid. This system reduced the stage's fuel consumption by 67%, and avoided 26 metric tons of carbon emissions, according to data from festival organizers.
This year's system will provide 1.5 megawatt hours of storage, the same capacity as last year. The system will power the T-Mobile stage. Read more here.
What makes this year's Lollapalooza especially compelling is its focus on artists who represent the future of their respective genres. Whether it's Clairo's sophisticated, downtempo evolution on 'Charm,' Mk.gee's innovative approach to indie rock, or The Marías' emotionally resonant breakup anthems, the festival promises to be a showcase for music that feels both contemporary and timeless.
Here's our picks for the best-of-the-best. Read more here.
The wave of visitors should keep most downtown hotel rooms and many restaurants filled, a much-needed boost at a time when overseas tourists seem increasingly reluctant to visit the U.S.
Chicago hotel operators say it's become one of downtown's most important events, and this year may be the biggest ever.
'The Lolla lineup determines overall success,' said Nabil Moubayed, general manager of the 792-room InterContinental at 505 N. Michigan Ave. 'This year's lineup is very strong, so we are seeing exceptional demand. It's exciting for us and the market.' Read more here.
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