Admission to the fairgrounds is $5 for adults 13 and older, $2 for children 5 -12 and senior citizens, free for children under 5. The fair features a carnival, horse racing, concession stands, entertainment in the grandstand and livestock judging.

There is a concert every evening in the Grandstand. Additional tickets are required for the Grandstand concerts. The featured artists this year are as follows:

8/13 – Lady Antebellum
8/14 – The Original Kiss Army with Journey Unauthorized
8/15 – Shinedown with Chevelle
8/16 – Illinois Symphony
8/17 – Mercy Me with 10th Avenue North
8/18 – Blake Shelton with Candy Coburn
8/19 – Sandra Lee – Semi Homemade – CANCELLED
8/20 – Cheap Trick with Blondie
8/21 – Selena Gomez with Mitchel Musso
8/22 – Darius Rucker with Eric Church

Get your tickets here !

For more Il State Fair information go to the official website

Just click on the band name to see dates and get your tickets!

Alternative

Alice In Chains
Atreyu
Chevelle
Dave Matthews Band
Flogging Molly
Flyleaf
Killswitch Engage
Puddle of Mudd
Theory of a Deadman

Hard Rock/Metal

AC/DC
Dokken
Five Finger Death Punch
Kix
Megadeth
Sevendust
Uncle Cracker
W.A.S.P.

Rock/Pop

Billy Joel & Elton John
Bon Jovi
Daughtry
Foreigner
Further featuring Phil Lesh
Gov’t Mule
Great White
Heart
Rick Springfield
Santana
Shinedown
Three Days Grace
Yes

Click the band name for dates and ticket information. 

If the show is sold out, be sure to check the Find Tickets page. Ticket brokers usually have tickets for sold out shows too!

About every other year, Rockfest has a band or two that come back and rock the masses. Tesla, Saliva and Jackyl are just a few for example, but Sunday evening brought a first time appearance from a band that hails from Jacksonville, FL. Their name is Shinedown.

Shinedown is one of those bands that weren’t slated as a headliner but easily could have closed one of the evenings. I was really pumped to see them, the radio has been playing songs non-stop supporting their latest effort, “The Sound of Madness“. Shinedown made sure we heard plenty off of the new album. But that wasn’t all, “Leave in a Whisper“, their debut album, gave us a couple of favorites during the set as well as their second album “Us and Them“, to give us a nice variety of material for the show.

Sometimes I have to admit I am a little partial to the younger bands. Nothing against older bands, but sometimes they don’t move around a whole lot. I like to be entertained. Shinedown was just the kind of band I wanted to see. Four guys on stage giving it their all for the fans.

An interesting thing occurred to me during the show. Vocalist Brent Smith came out on the opening number, “The Sound of Madness“, and my wife and I looked at each other and thought his voice sounded weak. It was perplexing because he is so young and hearing the songs on the radio with his powerful voice, I didn’t think it sounded like the same guy. Lucky for us, his voice just kept getting stronger and stronger as the show went on. I’ve heard singers whose voices start to drop off during a show but not get stronger! It really made for a great ending of the show as the band played “Second Chance” as 20,000 plus people sang along.

Lead singer Brent Smith spent some time out in the crowd during the show. He moved through the VIP section and got up on the sound tower. He sang from there for awhile and then made his way back through VIP to the stage. This seems to always get the crowd fired up!

I really can’t say enough about these guys. Their melodic style of hard rock is not only awesome to hear on the radio but riveting to hear live. I’m sure everyone who saw them that night will agree, feel free to be one of those bands that visits Rockfest every other year and rocks the house, or make it every year, we won’t complain.

Shinedown has several more dates in 2009.  Go see them if you get the chance!