The best Chicago summer guide: Find things to do. Make a plan. Get texts.
Build your own bucket list with our customizable guide to 250+ events and happenings around the city.
Things to do this summer in and around Chicago
Our picks for everything from farmers markets to free concerts to great reads and adventures, featuring the people and places that keep Illinois interesting.
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How to use this guide to plan your ultimate summer
Our WBEZ Summer 250 helps you create a bucket list of things to do this summer.
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The Rundown: The definitive WBEZ guide to summertime in Chicago
Looking for a class, a concert, or a cultural event this summer? WBEZ’s comprehensive guide to summertime in Chicago is here to help.
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Your summer books preview
Four voracious readers bully each other (in the friendliest way possible!) into reading the most anticipated books of the summer.
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Beyond a landmark: WBEZ’s guide to Promontory Point and Hyde Park
Promontory Point, nestled between 54th and 56th streets along the lakefront, received landmark status last month to help preserve its limestone revetments and promenade.
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Why some Chicago neighborhoods are more prone to deadly summer heat
The temperature in your neighborhood is determined in part by the number of trees and parks and how much pavement and industry there is.
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Will hike for beer! Seven Midwest hikes with taprooms nearby.
We’re calling it an “adventure pairing” — a hike that ends with a cold brew at a great regional brewery. All our picks are under a three-hour drive from Chicago.
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Summer of Chicago music: Nine up-and-coming acts to see now
It’s summer festival season. Go for the headliners, but stay for these local up-and-comers worthy of their own spotlight.
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The 2023 WBEZ guide to summer farmers markets in Chicago and the suburbs
Every day of the week, there’s a farmers market open for business somewhere in the Chicago area. Use our updated guide to locate the one closest to you.
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Water safety tips to keep in mind when you cool off in Lake Michigan
One drowning prevention advocate says there needs to be a “stop, drop and roll” of water safety.
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Foo Fighters, The Cure among Riot Fest 2023 lineup at Douglass Park festival
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Tuesday for the festival running Sept. 15–17 in Chicago.
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The WBEZ guide to the best free things to do this summer
Music, movies, theatre, festivals, food and more: These top-notch activities won’t cost a dime.
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Updated: The WBEZ guide to 80-plus summer farmers’ markets in Chicago and the suburbs
Every day of the week, there’s a farmers market open for business somewhere in the Chicago area. Use our updated guide to locate the one closest to you.
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Actor Jeremy Allen White dishes on Italian beef and learning to cook for ‘The Bear’
Actor Jeremy Allen White recently joined WBEZ’s Reset to discuss what it was like to create The Bear, what he’d like to explore with his character and more.
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A Chicago theater director takes on the Bard: ‘If we have to change a word, we will’
With free shows, diverse casting and a little artistic license, Midsommer Flight hopes to detangle Shakespeare and make it more appealing to audiences.
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Your guide to the weirdest things to do in Northwest Indiana
From a Scottish castle to a shipwreck in a national park, Northwest Indiana offers several interesting spots to check out on a late summer road trip.
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Three-day festival at Ravinia celebrates women conductors and considers their challenges
Marin Alsop, the accomplished chief conductor spearheading the event, says there is much work to do ‘to create a more equitable landscape for the future.’
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Hearing the call of the kayak and ‘river therapy’ in northern Illinois
In search of a lifeline during a grueling pandemic, more area residents picked up paddling. Eager conservation groups have taken notice.
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Kayaks, canoes and more: 14 great places to find solace on Illinois waters
Thanks to some regional conservation groups, some Northern Illinois waterways are in better shape than they’ve been in years – making now the right time to explore.
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The antidote for burned-out millennials? It’s the climbing gym.
For a generation trained on hyperproductivity, the climbing gym is becoming a go-to spot to make friends, have a serious workout and blow off steam.
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Chicago helped ‘first-gen kid’ KAINA find her voice. Now she’s using it.
The Latina songstress brings her stereotype-pushing music to the Pitchfork Music Festival green stage on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
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The distinctive underground rock band Karate gets a fresh listen – and a prime-time Pitchfork slot
Disbanded before the embrace of the internet, Karate could have remained in obscurity. But courtesy of its Chicago label, the group is on the path to revival.
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A new ballet for children draws inspiration from Puerto Rico, skyscrapers and Beyoncé
Up tempo and ideal for families, the Joffrey Ballet’s “Rita Finds a Home” tells the migration story through the eyes of a child. Chicago audiences have seven chances to see it for free in July.
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Youth dancers take center stage in a new short film about the Bud Billiken Parade
In “Billiken,” premiering tonight as the centerpiece of this summer’s Art on theMART, young dancers appear to glide through blue skies.
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Nick Cave may be the artist we need right now
His groundbreaking response to the 1991 police beating of Rodney King was the Soundsuit — a largescale abstract costume that allowed him to hide. Now, in a major show at the MCA, Cave takes a full …
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A daughter of the Robert Taylor Homes mines her bittersweet childhood for a big debut
Toya Wolfe’s anticipated first novel, ‘Last Summer on State Street,’ is an unsparing portrait of girlhood in the infamous housing complex.
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In rural Michigan, a gay vacation hamlet embraces almost everyone
Saugatuck made its name as a haven for those searching out a quieter, more accepting bucolic life. Insiders want to broaden its LGBTQ appeal.
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In the hands of these poets, Chicago is a collection of scintillating everyday moments
A blockbuster anthology, just out, gives a star turn to 134 living poets with deep ties to the city. Meet three standouts.
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Melody Angel is Big Mama Thornton-meets-Hendrix and Chicago’s next blues superstar
After two years in hiding during the pandemic, the 31-year-old blueswoman is bringing that voice and those guitar licks back to local stages.
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The Field Museum reckons with its own history in a new exhibition
The Field Museum spent four years redesigning its Native North America hall. That involved looking inward at the harm the museum had done.
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Wilco releases an out-and-out country music double album with ‘Cruel Country’
NPR’s Scott Simon talks to Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche about their new album Cruel Country, and about writing songs with uncomfortable truths.
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At last, a major museum expansion will give Pullman’s Black porters their due
It has taken Lyn Hughes nearly three decades to rally others behind her campaign to honor the men who helped establish the Black middle class in America.
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