Most attendees experience Ravinia on the 36 acre parkland and lawn. The unique setting allows for open seating and picnicking, where families and attendees can choose to use as much (or little) space as they need, with a powerful sound system broadcasting the live performance throughout the park. Most attendees choose to bring complete picnics and dinners to shows, with various lawn chairs, coolers full of food, blankets, candles, and lawn accessories in tow.
The Pavilion is a 3,200-seat venue where the park's major music events and concerts, including Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances, are held. Patrons can see the shows in a traditional concert setting in an open-air theater with state-of-the-art sound, video and lighting equipment or choose to sit in the lawn area and listen to the music while picnicking.
I chose to sit in the Pavilion for the concert I attended. This is the view from my seat! It was a little hard to see the musicians at the back of the stage but images from cameras filming the event were projected onto large television monitors. The music sounded the same!
Several restaurants (from fine dining to cafeteria-style) and food carts are located throughout the park. I opted for the caferteria-style Ravinia Market. While edible, the noodles and skewered chicken were far less memorable than the music performed at the concert.
I was impressed with the Ravinia experience and would definitely return. The lawn was packed with people at the beginning although most had left by the end of the concert since it had started to rain quite hard - a definite disadvantage of sitting outdoors. Lawn tickets are only $5 or $10 depending on the performance so it does make a high-quality musical experience accessible for anyone regardless of budget.
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