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Summer Smash Festival returns this weekend June 20-22 at SeatGeek
Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash Festival announces return on June 20-22, 2025. World’s Largest Independently-Owned Hip-Hop Music Festival Returns To Chicagoland’s SeatGeek Stadium After Breaking Attendance Records of more than 120,000. Featuring 50+ performances over three days on three stages
Local organizers behind Summer Smash Festival, Lyrical Lemonade and SPKRBX, are proud to announce that their weekend music festival event officially returns to SeatGeek Stadium near Chicago in Bridgeview, Illinois June 20 through Sunday, June 22.
Now in its seventh year, the premier Midwest Hip Hop festival is once again bringing together iconic artists, including Don Toliver & Yeat (Fri), Future (Sat), Young Thug (Sun), and Chance the Rapper (Sun) and more than 50 other performers.
The 2025 tickets are now available, offering three-day General Admission passes alongside various VIP packages. The GA passes will be the least expensive tickets available to the General Public with prices increasing as the event date approaches, so fans are encouraged to act quickly.
The SeatGeek concert gates open at 3 p.m. on Friday and at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
After a historic edition last year in which Summer Smash welcomed more fans than ever before while hosting over 120,000 festival attendees from around the globe, the three-day outdoor music festival has continued to cement itself as the largest independently-owned hip-hop festival in the world.
Founded seven years ago by a pair of Chicago-based music powerhouses – the Midwest’s leading hip-hop concert promoter and concert production group SPKRBX and award-winning next-gen media company Lyrical Lemonade – Summer Smash offers music fans a stacked festival lineup filled with the most sought-after names in hip-hop and rap, ranging from Grammy Award winners to acts dominating radio waves to fast-rising up-and-comers to hometown Chicago rappers.
Located roughly 30 minutes from downtown Chicago in nearby Bridgeview, Illinois at SeatGeek Stadium, the outdoor event will continue to offer fans access to high-energy performances across three main stages including one outdoors within the world-class sports stadium, while the other main stage is custom-built and constructed on outdoor turf nearby along with a third performance stage housed underneath a massive open-air tent.
Beyond improved production, sound, and lighting at each main stage, fans will once again be treated to dozens of art installations, carnival games, roaming performers, and larger-than-life activations once inside the festival grounds, along with a sky-high Ferris wheel that offered unparalleled views of the sprawling multi-acre festival grounds, and one of the America’s most robust festival culinary programs featuring the best of the Midwest’s food scene.
Multiple free water-filling stations throughout the festival. You are allowed to bring in one empty 16.9oz disposable water bottle to refill while you’re at the festival. Each water-filling station marked on the festival map has multiple filling taps.
While Summer Smash has firmly cemented its place as the largest hip-hop festival in the country as the festival celebrates its seventh anniversary this June, hometown organizers at Lyrical Lemonade and SPKRBX continue to elevate the fan experience for festival-goers by placing greater emphasis on local offerings with a culinary experience that highlights both iconic Chicago staples and emerging chef-driven concepts from across the Midwest.
With a more than 20% increase in food vendors from last year, the 2025 edition will offer the expected 100,000-plus total attendees even more ways to get their fill between sets during the three-day affair.
Returning crowd favorites such as Harolds Chicken Shack, Portillo’s Hot Dogs, Bacci Pizzeria, and Seoul Taco will be joined by first-time vendors including NADC Burger, El Taconazo Express, Café Tola and Festi Bowl.
The 2025 food lineup also features Etc., the acclaimed Chicago restaurant from James Beard semi-finalist and celebrity chef Lamar Moore, a South Side native.
Also returning for a third year is the popular Summer Smash Restaurant, a limited-time pop-up culinary concept featuring exclusive menu items developed in collaboration with select performing artists. Stay tuned as the full menu details are released closer to festival dates.
The new food lineup for Summer Smash Festival 2025 is listed below (A-Z) and available online at TheSummerSmash.com.
“We’ve set a high bar with our music programming, and the same attention to quality and scale extends to our food and hospitality efforts. I’m proud that each year, Summer Smash continues to elevate the experience for its fans,” said Berto Solorio, Summer Smash Festival Cofounder and SPKRBX CEO.
Tickets for GA for all three days is $375 while tickets for each day runs $140. You can get more information, purchase tickets and parking passes online by visiting www.TheSummerSmash.com.
Stay in the loop on more news and announcements on Summer Smash by following us on social media at @TheSummerSmash.
ABOUT SUMMER SMASH FESTIVAL:
Summer Smash is the largest independent hip-hop music festival in the world, taking place annually each summer in the greater Chicagoland area.
Founded by a pair of Chicago-based music powerhouses – Midwest’s leading hip-hop concert promoter SPKRBX and award-winning next-gen media company Lyrical Lemonade – Summer Smash is known for successfully curating an unparalleled festival lineup with stadium-filling superstars, established industry trendsetters, Grammy Award-winners, Chicago rap elite, and emerging new artists that will keep fans bragging for years about having seen these acts so early on in their careers.
ABOUT SPKRBX:
SPKRBX is an independent, Chicago-based, concert production company founded by Berto Solorio. Since 2015, SPKRBX has ascended to become one of the country’s premier hip-hop concert promoters and curators of live entertainment experiences. Having produced concerts in various venues and cities, ranging from small intimate shows to festivals drawing in thousands of attendees, SPKRBX is experienced in all facets of event production.
Talent Buying, Marketing, Management, Design, Strategy, and Concert & Festival Operations are just some of the services that SPKRBX specializes in.
Learn more at www.spkrbx.com.
ABOUT LYRICAL LEMONADE:
Launched in 2013 by Cole Bennett, Lyrical Lemonade began with a mission to spotlight Chicago rappers who were getting zero or very little coverage elsewhere. It found a gap between what was attracting media attention and what local hip-hop heads wanted to hear, and it made that space its niche.
Since its inception, Lyrical Lemonade has worked to establish itself as one of the most influential media platforms in hip-hop. Through music videos, artist relationship content, live events, high-demand apparel, and now even real drinkable lemonade, the company has blossomed into a national success. Visit lyricallemonade.com to learn more.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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