Lollapalooza announced its 2026 aftershow schedule Tuesday morning: late-night concerts will run from Tuesday, July 28, through Sunday, Aug. 2, beginning with Paris Paloma at Metro Chicago and spreading across more than 25 venues citywide.
People searching for lollapalooza aftershows this week are doing so for a reason — after the main four-day festival in Grant Park sold out quickly, the newly released aftershow slate gives ticket buyers a second, ticketed way to catch several of the same headline acts and rising names during festival week; aftershow tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday.
The announcement names a mix of international and local names: Zara Larsson, Ethel Cain, Cortis, Empire of the Sun, Five Seconds of Summer, Blood Orange and Cameron Winter of Geese are all on the aftershow bill, alongside Chicago artists such as Kaicrewsade and Horsegiirl. A handful of venue pairings were published: Zara Larsson is slated for the Vic Theatre on Thursday, July 30; Major Lazer is scheduled at Sound-Bar that same night; and Five Seconds of Summer will play the Salt Shed on Saturday, Aug. 1. Venues listed in the release include the Salt Shed, Sleeping Village, the House of Blues, the Ramova Theatre, Reggies and the Aragon, among more than two dozen others.
That breadth is the point: the aftershows run every night of the festival week, starting two days before the Grant Park headliners begin and continuing through the festival’s final night. For attendees who found the main festival sold out, the aftershows expand the ticketed market across Chicago’s club and theater circuit, turning one exhausted festival footprint into dozens of late-night destinations.
There is immediate friction beneath the schedule’s appeal. The festival’s headline slots — the four-day centerpiece in Grant Park from July 30 through Aug. 2 — are already full for many would-be attendees, and while the aftershow list supplies more dates and venues, it also fractures demand across small rooms with limited capacity. The announcement gives buyers some certainty by naming marquee acts and several venue matches, but whether fans can secure placements for the exact shows they want will be decided by how quickly tickets move when the sale opens Friday at 10 a.m.
What happens next is clear and actionable: tickets for the 2026 aftershows go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Anyone who missed out on a festival pass should treat that hour as the pivotal test — the schedule spreads major acts across more than 25 Chicago stages, and Friday’s sale will be the practical measure of how many additional attendees the aftershows actually accommodate.
