Glendale Heights Summerfest

Solid 3.5 stars, so I will round up to 4.
This summer festival has been going on here for years, usually around the second week of July each year. While the fest and its entertainment has scaled down slightly from what it was say 10 – 15 years ago, it still remains one of the better summer fests in the area which has no entry charge (not counting rides, food, etc.)
Nice selection of carnival rides and food vendors, items of food usually range on the pricey side as with all of these types of fests. Entertainment and «bands» usually perform each night for several hours.
As previously mentioned, some years back (late 90’s, early 2000’s) this festival was much larger — larger in overall size, many more and more daring type of carnival rides, and bigger (or once bigger) acts would usually perform on the Friday and Saturday night slots of this festival. Over the years many of these festivals have scaled down (or stopped all together) due to financial restraints. Recently, you mostly see cover/​tribute acts play — which is still cool. I guess considering the fest is free, I can’t complain too much.
I would recommend checking it out. One of the big positives about Glendale Heights Fest is that it is one of the few fests to do fireworks on more than one night. Weather permitting, fireworks are usually done the first night of the fest (usually on a Wed) and then the final night (usually Sunday), and the Sunday night version is a bit longer.
Still a nice yearly event. You may have noticed that many of the festivals in surrounding areas that were ONCE happening events have stopped the past few years — Bloomingdale (stopped around 2010), Lombard (stopped this year), Carol Stream (stopped around 2012), Hanover Park (stopped in 2010), even West Chicago this year has no festival.
(** Touching on above — Bloomingdale Fest for YEARS was huge, and FREE. And you’d see acts come thru like Lou Gramm of Foreigner, the Buckinghams, The Guess Who, Survivor, even Three Dog Night was there in the late 90’s. The town hasn’t had a fest since 2010 — I heard every year the community votes on having a ‘condensed version’, and it either gets voted down or there are ‘lack of funds’, as somebody within the village emailed me once. Just sad… you’d think they’d try running a fest and maybe having a small entrance fee of say $ 5 and see how it does…)
In conclusion, Glendale Heights Fest is not what it used to be in its heyday, but it is still a nice event with decent entertainment and something to come to for a few hours even if just to walk around and hang out for some music, or to see the fireworks. I commend them for still continuing on with the tradition and hope this remains.