Over the weekend as fans were enjoying the epic 4-day Lollapalooza festival in Grant Park in Chicago, tragedy struck as a 16-year-old kid died at the festival as reported by Consequence of Sound. The boy, identified as Evan Kitzmiller, was found unresponsive on Saturday night in Grant Park and he was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
No cause of death was determined, but there will be an autopsy conducted to determine exactly what happened. Kitzmiller’s mother believes that the boy may have suffered a seizure while at the festival, as she talked with him just a few hours before his death on Sunday night and he remarked that he was having the time of his life at the festival. This is not the first time tragedy has struck at the festival as a man died at Lollapalooza in 2009 and another man died at a Lollapalooza afterparty in 2014.
Lollapalooza was originally conceived by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Ferrell in 1991 as a farewell tour for the band, with the festival becoming an annual touring showcase for some of the biggest bands in the rock underground in the ’90s. Eventually, sales and interest plummeted, so Lollapalooza was retooled as a destination festival in Grant Park in 2005. Since then the festival has enjoyed a massive resurgence in interest, becoming one of the high points of what is now a loaded summer festival landscape.