Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery

10.05.2014

The (Not So) Great Chicago Fire Festival

In theory it sounded exciting.
Lots of fire. Lots of flames. Fireworks… and more!!! What’s not to like???

So last night I pedaled downtown with many, many layers on. It was the coldest night so far this Fall. Windy & cold. Somewhere in the low 40’s. Brrrrr… It was the FIRST time for this Great Chicago Fire Festival. So I felt “obligated” to go downtown for the fun!!!

I finally found a location along the Chicago River where I thought I might be able to see some of the festivities. And waited.

It started with some kayaks on the river pulling some floats of fire. Couldn’t see them, but the announcer told us they were there somewhere? Then they lowered flaming cauldrons from the bridges over the river. Each cauldron representing a different Chicago neighborhood… which made me think that these neighborhoods must be pretty darn small if the cauldron size meant anything?! A little anti-climactic with tiny flames in not-so-large cauldrons. Plus, we could only see two from where we were at.

Then they had some band & choir performance which might have been something important, but in reality is was a bunch of people on a Wendella boat driving by making noise. No flames. No fire.

Next they had some floating barges decorated like a paddleboats and a steam engine factory. Little bursts of flame. Mostly seen from the reflections on the Trump Tower. Again, the crowd was underwhelmed. Then we waited… and waited. I waited for about a half hour with nothing happening… so I decided to relocate to see if I could find a better vantage point. A LOT of people had already left entirely since there was nothing much going on. They were tired of waiting. But I wasn’t willing to give up. I had pedaled down just for this. And I was going to see something!!!

I found a better space with a better view of the buildings they had built to symbolize the buildings that were burnt during the REAL Chicago Fire in 1871. They had built three of these buildings barges for three different sections of river to accommodate the crowds. I was at the middle one. Waiting for it to catch on fire and burn to smithereens!!!

I was excited to have a better view… even if my view was obliterated with arms & cell phones!!! Sometimes the better view was to watch someone’s phone as though it were a not-so-jumbo-JumboTron. We all waited for the burning of the barges in the freezing wind. We waited… and waited…

And waited… with little flickers of flames here & there. So we waited…

And waited… so I took some time to admire the skyline at night. Bathed in pink lights for October Breast Awareness Month.

And we waited.
When finally they said they were having “Electrical Difficulties” and we should wait as they were going to have to ignite it all manually. And so we waited… and waited… another half-hour went by with a few more flickers. A hint of excitement as we all thought it might catch on fire as promised. And then we waited… and waited…

But then, out of nowhere, these two big “cranes” came up out of the water with firefighters on them and they hosed down the buildings. What? Weren’t they supposed to be burning? Wasn’t that why we were all there? For some real fire?!!! A lot of people were yelling at them to spray it with gasoline instead of water. But soon enough, the little flickers of flame were out. And everyone wondered if it was over.

Finally the announcer came back and said that they were going to move on to the finale of the show. Fireworks. And again we waited… for about 15 more minutes. Luckily, the fireworks seemed to go off without a hitch. And they were pretty darn spectacular. I must admit it was fun having them shooting from the center of the river, between buildings with the crowd pretty close on all sides. “Something” seemed to finally be going right. And the reflections on the buildings were pretty spectacular!!!