Did people who bought beerfest tickets just get this ridiculous email?

The liquor commission says they can't advertise "unlimited beer", so now you get the equivalent of 5 free beers (paid ~$43 for the ticket), and then 5 more beers for $15. I'm going to go and still have a great time, but that sucks.

Haha yeah I got it too.

I wonder if they'll sell the additional $15 vouchers at the door or during the show. Once people have their equivalent of 5 beers, it's gonna be easy to shell out another $15 for another 5.

Pretty stupid either way. I've been to a handful of these other places and never heard of anything like that.

Got the email around 5 pm and instantly requested a refund. Surprisingly, I got the refund in a matter of minutes. Seriously disappointed. Fortunately, I've been before.

That's really lame that they did that. When I was at Night of the Living Ales, it was a free-for-all with the admission

This has been my experience as well. Usually these events get so packed that its hard to actually drink the equivalent of 8-10 full beers, but the fact that they charged $43 per ticket and are asking for another $15 for more is just ridiculous.

They should have just refunded everyone like $20 to ensure a full-crowd. A bunch of those people would have sprung for the extra $15 once they arrived. I'd be interested to hear how many people actually show up tomorrow night.

To make a happy post, I finally went to the art of chicken on western and it ****ing rocked. It was a 6 month wait, but it is quality

I got tickets for April 6th for this, I am pumped! I will b goin with wife and another couple. I am looking for something else to do after the show. Not really a club person. If anyone knows anything goin on it would b appreciated.

Just got to union station and they are giving out like 3-4 of the "20 tastings" cards to each person. Think it's pretty much all you can drink. Awesome

Yeah it was fun. Definitely didn't end up being an issue. I got two of the cards at the door and more than half of the vendors didn't ask to check them anyways.

No Lolla talk? Tickets sold out in record time today -- approx. 1 hour for all 300,00. Saturday tickets were snapped up first (approx. 15 mins). Friday tickets soon followed. Then Sunday.

I tried to get Friday and Sunday tickets. Saturday's lineup bores me (Mumford would have been cooler two years ago). Friday was a no go but I got several Sunday tickets.

Overall, I'm trilled with this year's lineup compared to the past two.

Taste of Randolph Street has announced their full music lineup. Top acts include: Divine Fits, The Joy Fordmidable, Milo Greene, and Lord Huron.

TJF is a must-see.

Curious to see who Wicker Park Fest brings in for music acts this year. Last year's lineup was pretty strong for free street fest: Cursive, Foxy Shazam, Lucero, Kill Hannah.

Buddy of mine picked up a Friday ticket for me. Really looking forward to Queens of the Stone Age.

This. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the Foo Fighters pre-lolla show at the Metro a couple years ago and they were the opener. Been a fan since.

Today's sale I think had 20k tickets for each of the three days. I picked up two Fri and two Sat. Pretty insane demand this year with the 80k 3 days selling out in hours. I wasn't super interested in Sunday, and let wife choose which non Fri date she wanted. Should be a good time if there's no insane storms this year. Def agree that this lineup is better than last year's. Not as excited this year as I could be if there weren't so many Lolla reruns in the major acts. (nin, Mumford, vampire, Matt and Kim, thievery Corp, and even killers.) the one of those I missed prev years was killers, and sadly will miss again as they'll be opposite nin, unless something crazy works out with aftershows.

I'm moving to Chicago in a couple of months and am trying to figure out where to live. I lived in Evanston for a while a number of years back so I am somewhat familiar with Chicago, but mostly scene on the Northside. FWIW I'm late 20s and and will be moving with my fiance, we'd like to find a 2 bed in the low $2000 range, though that's a bit flexible depending on how nice the place is.

I will be commuting about 20 miles out 55-W for work and we're trying to figure how to best balance the commute with living in a cool neighborhood. I think the most obvious options for convenience would be either the South or West Loop, but I don't know that much these areas since they really weren't that happening last time I lived in the area. My impression is that West Loop has a good high end restaurant scene and lots of nice new apartments and converted lofts, but is it enough of a self contained neighborhood that we wouldn't be constantly running out to Lincoln Park/Lakeview/Wicker Park to find fun stuff to do?

From what I've heard, and a little that I've seen, I think I would like Wicker Park but that would probably require dealing with 94 everyday, which I'd rather avoid. LP/LV/Old Town/River North could also be an option depending on how bad Lakeshore traffic gets (I've been told its not too bad), but they would still add to the daily commute, though a bit less as we get closer to the Loop. If we live walking distance to Union Station I could also try to take the Metra out the burbs, leave my car there, and drive ~5 miles to work, but its unclear how possible or convenient that would be.

Anyway, any thoughts? I'm pretty excited to come back and actually experience everything about Chicago that I missed out on when I was young and broke.

I'm in bucktown right now, and getting to I-55 isn't that bad. Ukrainian Village wouldn't be a bad idea at all as you'd be able to easily get to both wicket park and the west loop. Considering your commute needs, being in lincoln park, lakeview, and river north would add unnecessary stress IMO

I wouldn't throw River North into the same bag as LP and LV necessarily. The latter are way more congested and further from major highways. I'm pretty biased as I live on Franklin / Ontario which is basically the onramp to 90 but regardless I think there are plenty of places in RN that would work. That being said, the hard part will be a 2bed for 2k / month.

This is true, and the rent part would make river north very tough. I'm also pretty sure that chrome is in Portland iirc from his soccer posts, so there is some playing into what he may like as well

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I have a friend who lives in River North and I stayed with him a lot when coming up for interviews. Its a fun area to visit but I'm not sure how much I would want to live there, since its a little lacking on neighborhood character. It also starts getting expensive pretty quickly, especially since we may need two parking spots. The low 2k figure is just a ballpark, we could probably afford a bit more, but would of course prefer not to. Do you guys have any concept of what the Fulton River area is like, a quick look suggests that we could probably find a 2 bed with 1 parking spot in pretty nice building for ~$2500. Being able to walk to Union could potentially save the cost of one downtown parking spot, but again, I'm not sure how well that would work.

I'm from Oregon originally and while I do tend to like a more laid back nightlife, I wouldn't call myself your typical Portland hipster (whatever that means). I would say a night out in my book would involve a good beer bar, some reasonably priced interesting/unique/ethnic food and the occasional upscale cocktail. Obviously we aren't just limited to the immediate area we live in, but it would be nice to have some stuff nearby that we can walk to after work. My fiance is pretty set on being in an area that is very safe and walkable, and we're not sure how well West Loop fits this since it seems to quiet down a decent amount at night, and might be a bit isolated. We have similar issues with South Loop even though it would probably be the most convenient for me.

I had kind of discounted WP/UV due to the commute, but if getting to 55 isn't too bad I may look into them a bit more, since they seem like areas we that we would enjoy. I just remember some awful traffic experiences coming in from O'Hare around rush hour.

West Loop is very safe, but also feels like an unfinished product right now. The dining scene is definitely based around Randolph, but stops right at Grand Ave.

If the commute wasn't an issue, then Lincoln square/north center would be perfect for you. As is, Ukie village definitely accomplishes this as does wicker park and bucktown. If you want to stay east of the highway, look at Roscoe village.

I would really suggest taking a week and using yelp a lot to go around the city and trying to get a feel for what you guys like best.

Thanks again, I have some time off during the transition so I'm definitely planning to come up for a while to look around and probably do some morning commute time trials, I'm just trying to decide where to focus the search. What's it like getting around from Ukrainian Village? A lot of people have mentioned it as a cool up and coming area, but I've never been there myself and it seems like a bit of a walk from the Division L stop

Yea, the lack of a real blue line stop is pretty much my only beef with ukie village. The division blue stop can be a walk (depending where you are) and the Chicago Blue stop can be just as annoying to get to.

If you base yourself off of damen or ashland (and generally between division and chicago), you'll be more than fine (with a small walk) for blue line purposes. You will need to use your car around there, though, from time to time.

Ukrainian village aka West Town can be hit or miss, its a trendy area for sure and close to wicker park, but there's a fair share of hobos and general scumminess down Chicago.avenue

Do you live in 630 Franklin?