Electric Daisy Carnival at Chicagoland Speedway will limit crowds to 30K per day
By Bob Okon bokon@stmedianetwork.com March 7, 2013 5:52PM
Updated: April 9, 2013 11:50AM
Crowds at this year’s Electric Daisy Carnival, which could become an annual event in Joliet, will be limited to 30,000 a day, the city’s police chief said.
The three-day festival of electronic dance music has drawn close to 300,000 people in other cities. But the carnival will start out on a smaller scale in Joliet, Chief Mike Trafton said Thursday.
“I think they want to move slowly in the first year,” Trafton said.
This is the first year for the Electric Daisy Carnival in the Chicago area. It will run through the Memorial Day weekend, May 24-26, at Chicagoland Speedway.
Trafton said understands that Insomniac, the promoter of the event, would like to bring the festival back to the Joliet speedway each year.
The police department is starting to make plans on how to handle the festival, which not only will bring traffic but has led to numerous drug arrests in the past.
Trafton said his department has consulted with police in Las Vegas, where the event has been held, and “they say it’s a very, very peaceful event. That makes us happy.”
The chief said Joliet also will prepare for the possibility of illegal drug use at the music festival.
“We’re going to deploy quite a large contingent of undercover officers,” he said. “If people make the mistake of bringing in drugs, we’re going to apprehend them.”
Representatives from Insomniac could not be reached for comment.
But Trafton said the promoter had decided to limit attendance to 30,000 a day, which could mean 90,000 people over the weekend.
“The first time they come in you want to be sure it’s done right,” he said. “It’s new to the city.”
