The city of Aurora did an excellent job pulling off their first ever Harry Potter Festival!…read more Tickets: This was a ticketed event ($3 cash per ticket - max 5 per person) and required in-person purchase several months prior to the actual event. Even though I arrived a few hours after the ticket purchase start time, I only stood in line for about an hour to get mine. A lot of people had complaints, but it honestly wasn't bad, especially given all of the publicity! The festival itself: They planned it out very well and had multiple events and activities, most kid-focused and friendly, but good for older fans too. Activities included a quidditch workshop, spell book creation, Ollivander's wands (x2), a potions lab, mocktail creations, Herbology, how to plant a Whomping Willow, Care of Magical Creatures, a self-guided Horcrux Hunt, Quiddich playing a, costume parade, a ride on the Hogwarts Express. Finally, there were multiple vendors in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade! Many of the activities required online preregistration, though many crafting events were free and just required you to stand in the queue. It was spaced out enough that the crowds were manageable and the lines weren't too long. Goods vendors in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade included bath bombs (including a House Reveal version - cool!), jewelry, bags, paintings, plants, wall decor, and much more! Everything was really cute and went along with the Harry Potter/Hogwarts theme. There were a few food and butter beer vendors, including 4-packs of bottled butter beer. A lot of the local businesses also got into the spirit of the festival and decorated their storefronts. I spied Wayne and Garth (20th anniversary of Wayne's World!) sporting Hogwars hats - cute! The local Paramount theatre offered four Harry Potter movie showings for $1 apiece, had Harry Potter-themed drinks and candy, and had an awesome 9 3/4 platform in their lobby! Security (and Aurora PD) was posted throughout the event and were friendly and helpful. Port-o-Johns were plentiful and stocked with hand sanitizer. By 2pm, garbage cans were overflowing.. so that's something they can keep an eye on next time. Great job on a really well thought out and organized event, Aurora!

Aurora's inaugural 2017 Harry Potter festival was a hit…read more There was plenty to do and see, and the overall vibe from all of the attendees was overwhelmingly positive, especially considering nothing like this has been held in Aurora before. The Quidditch pitch hosted tons of kids playing Quidditch which was tons of fun to watch. Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade showcased tons of local, themed vendors that had lots of cool trinkets and souvenirs to buy. There were tons of fun classes to sign up for and take part in, like Herbology, Potions, and Magical Mocktails. It was also great to see a lot of the local businesses, closed or not, decorate their windows or host themed events related to the event, which definitely added to the overall spirit of the day. Best of all, eagle-eyed visitors spotted a number of subtle decorations that showed that there were true Harry Potter fans behind this event, including a "2nd Triwizard Task Vieweing Area" (overlooking the Fox River), Tom Riddle's grave, and all 7 horcruxes to hunt and find, each with a clever clue that led to the next. I can't wait until next year's event. I'm sure it's going to be even better!

Good Family fun but needs more rides. Main Stage and beer garden is for adults only this year. Wild…read morewest bbq yum, funnel cake, cheese fries. Lots of vendors. Try out some of the local owned shops, they're great! Nice small local event. Bands are cool.

I believe this is an annual event. It is held on the grounds of the elementary school which REALLY…read morecauses parking headaches ~ for neighbors and attendees alike. That was my only complaint. This is a cute, little old fashion carnival that uses corn as an excuse to have a good time. There are rides for all ages but 36 inches tall appears to be the starting point for riders. There is a food section, an area for musical entertainment, a craft section, and I understand they also have fireworks, we did not stay that late. Alcoholic beverages were available, but ID was required to obtain the wristband that was required to purchase alcohol AND they were not allowed in the main carnival area. The fire department brought out the heavy equipment and the SWAT team looked very intimidating. Oh, don't mess with the K-9 squad either. This is not a 6 Flags type place, Lines were extremely short, sometimes nonexistent and the ride operators were very gentle with the little ones, even willing to stop the ride if tears started to flow. We lucked out in that it was not 95 degrees with high humidity. A nice event to take the grandkids and do a little people watching.

A free drive thru Holiday Light Festival held in Phillips Park in Aurora…read more This free event runs from late November thru late December daily from 5-9pm. You will have to check the website for exact dates. They advise you to pre register which is not required since no one checks you in . I wish the local authorities would have been assisting with the fllow of traffic entering and leaving the park . Especially for people not familiar with the area. It a fun family event during the holiday season.

Nice, free. park district drive through lights display for a cold winter night. Good for families…read moreand the young at heart. Traffic moved pretty well but signs to find the correct entrance are not as helpful as having someone live directing. Many people showed up to the wrong entrance and had to reroute..

July 2014 marked the 43rd year for the Aurora Puerto Rican Heritage Festival. I love going to fests…read moreof all kinds in different towns and I must admit...this was one of the best I've been to. The Puerto Rican Heritage Fest is in downtown Aurora at the River Edge Park. They couldn't have picked a better location. For one, the park is fairly new and absolutely beautiful. Two, parking was extremely easy--only $1.50 in the metra parking lot and it is right across the street from the fest. And three, they have a huge stage with seating for live bands. The festivities last two days, Saturday and Sunday, and kick off with the Puerto Rican Parade at noon. The parade itself is located in the streets of downtown near City Hall. After that, everyone walks/drives over to River Edge. It's only $5 to get in! Not bad. As soon as you're past security, it's like you're actually in Puerto Rico. The smell of delicious fried foods, red white and blue flags every where, and loud music that makes you want to stop and dance with someone. I was in heaven! First thing to do at any fest is head to liquor booths. There were pina colada and daquiri booths every where, so I picked the first one I came to. "These have rum in them right?" "No, you have to go get drink tickets at a different stand and they only sell mikes hard and beer." WHAT!? How are you gonna have all these drink stands and no booze? Not too big of a deal, but that's definitely a recommendation I would make for next year. So I grabbed a Mikes hard. It was $4 but that's typical at any fest. Next I went to all the booths where they sold puerto rican jewelry, flags, clothes, art work, anything you could imagine. It was much like Guavate, Puerto Rico. Shops everywhere but many of them selling the same stuff. I got a great flag, only $3 bucks, and a festival t-shirt, only $15 bucks. The prices were very reasonable. Keep in mind...many of the vendors only spoke Spanish. Now for the food...by far the best part of the fest! Anything I could possibly get my hands on and eat...I did. There were multiple food vendors. Again, many of them selling the same type of foods, but some times the way they make it varies (such as the beans different vendors use. And yes, the type of bean you use when making Puerto Rican food matters!!) All together, I spent only $26 bucks on food and you would not believe me if I showed you just how much food $26 bucks got me! I got two empanadillas (fried meat pies), a huge portion of lechon (pulled pork), a fried plantain, one giant rellenos de papa (fried potato ball with ground beef inside), habichuelas guisadas (pink beans with wonderful seasoned sauce), and arroz con gandules (yellow rice and gandules)! We also ordered the bacalaitos (cod fritters), alcapurria (corn fritter stuffed with ground beef), and a pastele. The pastele, however, was the only thing that was not good! It was complete mush. Everything else was AMAZING!! They also sold pinchos, sorrulitos de maiz (sweet corn fritters), mozzarepa (corn pancake stuffed with mozzarella), and funnel cakes...so many different kinds of funnel cakes like red velvet! Mmmm.... This fest is seriously a great time. The people are so beautiful and friendly (seriously every person working the fest was just so happy to be there, really friendly and helpful). The music was fun, the puerto rican souvenirs were well priced, and the food was cheap and DELICIOUS!! I can't wait for next years fest!

North Aurora Days was a LOT smaller than I expected! It's held in the parking lot of a single strip…read moremall off of Randall and Oak Streets (where the Super Wash is). FOOD: There was a beer tent and 6 food vendors: 1 BBQ, 1 Tacos, 1 fried foods, 1 corn, 1 Italian Ice, and an Oberweis Dairy ice cream truck. I found food prices to be REALLY steep: I paid $15 for a 6" corn dog and dry cheese curds that had been sitting under a warmer. ENTERTAINMENT: In the evening there were only carnival games (4), a tall slide, and a bouncy castle, and a stage with live music. During the day there are specific events (garage sale, book sale, 5k). People set up lawn chairs, so note you can bring those. Most went "parade style" and set them up en masse to claim spots, and then left elsewhere. Overall? Meh. Very underwhelming, at least in terms of attending Saturday evening. I suppose it's halfway decent if you live in the neighborhood and just want to chill and listen to music with your family and neighbors.

Boy! Has North Aurora Days come around. If you would like to walk back in time and relish the…read moreexperience of a good ole' fashion small town picnic. Then you oughta try North Aurora Days at their Riverfront Park next time it happens. There's music, refreshments, rustic and picturesque scenery - and a very special atmosphere of family fun and wholesome good times.

We had so much fun. Plenty of parking near downtown. We parked near red mango and walked by the…read moreriver but didn't need to. We got there about 2 hours after the event began. Lot of people were already fully drenched in colors! the only pet peeve was that we were asked to get tickets first and then stand in a long line to buy colors. I'd've bought colors from home if i knew I'd have to stand in long lines for an hour. The event was free - but not really. great desi music to dance to! next time i'm getting all my friends and bring my colors!

I had never gone to this before, but it was super fun! The food was great and decently-priced for…read morebeing a festival ($2 to $5), the entertainment was fantastic (a live band plus some classical Indian dance groups), not to mention the super fun colors being thrown everywhere. (They sell colors on-site for $2 each, and you get quite a few. We bought one of each color available to split among our group of six people and we had more than enough). When we left we were sufficiently covered from head to toe. It was a bit chilly, but that can't be helped. I'd totally come back again next year. Everyone was so great and welcoming (strangers dancing with you, decorating you with colored powder, etc.). Super fun.

I love this fair. There are so many talented artists displaying their work. It's truly inspiring. I…read moregot so many design ideas from spending a couple of days here. It spans a couple of blocks on Jefferson and takes place annually in Sept. It's really worth it if you enjoy art and want to support artists There's no security checkpoints unlike the last fling. No entry fees. There are no food or drink venders, but there are porta-potties around if you're desperate enough to use one Check it out! The art is beautiful even if you have no plans to purchase

I've still been coming to this fair for years since it's conveniently located for me, but I agree…read morewith my sentiments from the review some years back. This is definitely the more costly art fair in town, but you will find all kinds of interesting paintings, sculptures, jewelry, fiber art, and more to browse. Saw a few unique things, like moving sculptures from found metal objects, and the really cool "Boxed Music" wooden drums (see video)! I've been some years when it has been beastly hot, and it's on the street so it's pretty punishing; this year wasn't too bad but still pretty toasty. Not a lot for small kids to do, though there were a few kid-oriented activity booths I saw. Dick Blick Art Supplies and the Naperville Art League were also present. Overall, always worth a look for something new, but bring the big bucks.

Midwest Brewer's Fest in Plainfield is at the Plainfield Riverfront Park with a ton of craft beers…read morein 2 oz servings. Parking is a good distance walk on a rocky, uneven path from the fest and costs $10! Good thing we had our emergency valet money in the car because we weren't prepared for that cost as the website listed free parking. My friend wasn't all that happy with paying for parking but I reminded him that the money all goes to a good cause. :D Plus!!! We got our tickets for free (Thanks, Candice!!!) - and they're normally $40 when you prepay. It was hot as balls on the day of the fest. Being hot as balls, it would have been nice to have more tents & seating set up for people to relax. Also, they had water kegs on the lawn, but were empty when I tried to get some water. Other than the parking, water and bathroom situation, I thought the event was well put together and ran quite smoothly. Because there were so many breweries, lines were relatively short. My favorite beer was the Watermelon from Horny Goat. I've passed Horny Goat in Milwaukee many times so was pleased I got to try one of their brews. They were out of their other two offerings by 3pm (two hours in) which suited me fine as I wanted the Watermelon...but others were leaving the line a bit crabby. Because of the extreme heat, we didn't stay the full fest and I couldn't drink as much beer as I would have liked. I had 17 tickets left at the end of the fest (started out with 25) and felt a bit sad I couldn't use them. On the long walk back to the car, my flip flop broke! Eek! So I had to gimp back to the car, dying to go pee because I refused to go in the porta potties onsite. All in all, it was a decent festival but could tweak some areas to make it amazing festival. I'll probably skip the fest next year unless the weather is nice and cool and the breweries promise to offer some more unique choices.

The Midwest Brewer's Fest seemed very well planned. For a $40 General Admission ticket ($50 at the…read moregate) attendees received a beautifuly printed, perfect bound brochure containing detailed Fest info which included a foldout pocket map of the festival grounds/beer tents and a description of each participating brewery with room for taking notes; a plastic beer 'glass', and 25 tickets for 2 oz. beer pours. If you're doing the math, that's just over 3 pints of beer. Of course it's difficult to do just a 2 oz. pour from a tap, so I estimate if you used all your tickets you probably had 4 pints of beer. I'm a lightweight and so is my husband, so we were more interested in tasting a variety of brews than in quantity of beer received, so the small pours were great for us. We got to taste a lot of beers, though we didn't get to them all. Our palate and backs tired out well before we began to feel the beer. There were four beer tents (A-D) with 14 brewers each. That's 56 brewers! Each brewery brought at least two beers. There were kegs of cold, filtered water all along both sides of each tent so attendees could wash their beer glasses, cleanse their palates, and stay hydrated. There was also a VIP tent, but not having VIP tickets I can't tell you what went on there. The lines for beer were generally short. Even the long lines were not a long wait. It was smart of the organizers not to oversell tickets. There was a designated smoking area occupied mostly by cigar smokers. It was not a smokers ghetto, but rather set up under a tree with some cushy outdoor couches and chairs. Cigars were sold on site. Now I have been known to appreciate a cigar with a stout or porter, but I do wish the designated smoking area had been at one end of the grounds or the other. Having it alongside the beer tents meant I often had cigar smoke with my ale whether I wanted it or not. There were also individuals who felt the designated smoking area did not apply to them and who hit me in the face with a blast of smoke while I was waiting in line for a beer. Not appreciated. Food was exceptional for a fest of this kind. Way better than hot dogs spinning on a roller. Heaven on Seven was there, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Windy City Paella, Aurelio's Pizza. I had paella and it was delicious. There was plenty of shade and seating in the food tent too. I heard some folks paid $10 dollars for parking. We parked free near the Village Hall and walked no further than everyone else. My biggest disappointment had nothing to do with the Fest itself, but with the brewers' offerings. There was an overabundance of pale ales, IPAs, and wheat beers. There were quite a few pumpkin ales too. My husband and I had really hoped some of the brewers would bring out their less pedestrian brews. There was not one sour to be had. There were a few Belgian abbey styles. At least one porter and one stout. We thought surely with so many brewers and beers that we would be able to extend our experience of what we know as beer, but there was not the variety of styles that we had expected. We were pleased to find mead and several brewers of ciders and perrys. The purpose of the fest (beyond celebrating craft beer) was to raise funds to restore the Plainfield Riverfront (the venue for the Fest) and support Pints for Prostates. I confess I won the tickets as a (very new) Yelp Elite. Had we spent $80 to find less variety than we expected, we might have been very disappointed because $80 buys dinner and a couple choice selections of beer at a good beer bar. I would still be impressed by the organization and experience of the Fest itself. Perhaps the organizers can persuade the brewers to take more chances with their offerings next year.