Organizers say the planned move of a Central Illinois music festival from a park in Chillicothe to the Peoria Riverfront is off, at least for this year.
The Summer Camp Music Festival and associated events had a 25-year history at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe. The annual celebration featured three days of camping, vendors and live music.
In a Facebook post in December 2024, organizers announced a new direction for the festival on the Peoria Riverfront. The new festival would be three days of musical performances over Memorial Day weekend; camping would no longer be an option.
In a new post on Thursday, organizers announced the cancellation of this new iteration of the festival. In its place, Summer Camp will present a series of shows throughout the summer at the Peoria Riverfront.
“Although we gave it our best efforts, a variety of factors such as the state of the music festival industry, artists conflicts and more did not allow us to put together a Memorial Day event this year that would live up to the Summer Camp Presents brand,” reads the post.
The music festival, with an atmosphere evoking the counterculture of early Woodstock, has survived other significant changes. In 2023, festival organizer Ian Goldberg told WCBU the event was going on hiatus due to challenges with talent attraction and rising costs post-pandemic.
The event did return to Three Sisters Park in 2024 in a scaled-back form as SolShine Music and Arts Reverie. At the time, Chillicothe Mayor Mike Hughes told WCBU he attends the festival every year and is a supporter of its presence in the community.
The Summer Camp brand also has attracted notable artists over the years like Willie Nelson, Cake, moe., and Goose. Planned performances over the summer include some of those names, such as Cake and moe.
The organizers say the shows are intended as a prequel for a full-scale Summer Camp Music Festival in 2026.
