The Last Fling, Naperville’s traditional Labor Day weekend festival, returns this year Sept. 2-5 with a carnival, food vendors, a parade, entertainment, and live music — all the things that people have come to expect from the four-day festival. But it’s also returning to its roots, opting to move away from nationally touring headliners and focusing more on creating a family-friendly, accessible experience.
Hours are 5 to 11 p.m. Sept. 2; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sept. 3; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sept. 4; and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 5.
“We’ve been looking to scale the event back to make it more community-focused versus trying to compete with the bigger events in the area,” said Karen Coleman, the Last Fling’s public relations chair and a member of the Naperville Jaycees, which organizes the event.
She’s helped organize the Last Fling for more than a decade, and the push to scale back the scope of the festival has been discussed for the last five years. The pandemic helped them move forward with the decision.
“The way that we were doing things was not sustainable long-term,” she said. “We aren’t a large enough organization to continue the festival in the direction it was heading.
“We spent years exploring different options,” she said. “We went to charging everyone $10 in 2019, and that was received poorly. This event, at the end of the day, is a fundraiser that is funneling money back into local organizations. We knew we needed to find a way to make a fun event for people of all ages that would still be profitable and more manageable.”
So visitors to this year’s festival can expect to find much of what they’ve come to love over the years, but without the crowds that came with featuring nationally recognized entertainment — and without the entrance fee.
“This was the opportunity for us to recreate the festival as a smaller community block-party-style event, without having such a huge impact on road closures and businesses in the area,” she said.
That doesn’t mean an end to the entertainment. The Jackson Avenue stage will be filled with well-known Chicago-area bands for most of the festival, beginning on 5 p.m. Friday with Within 4 Days, a Naperville band known for its high-energy performances of hits spanning the last six decades. They will be followed at 8 p.m. by The Boy Band Night, a tribute to boy bands ranging from NSYNC to One Direction.
Saturday’s lineup starts at noon with Heart to Heartbreaker, which performs songs primarily from Heart and Pat Benatar. Motown Nation follows at 2:30 p.m., followed by Mix Tape Junkies at 5 p.m. and Too Hype Crew — a tribute band to hip-hop in the ’80s and ’90s — at 8 p.m.
Sunday starts with Le Grande Band at noon, followed by ’90s Pop Nation at 2:30 p.m., the yacht rock of the Ron Burgundy’s at 5 p.m., and 16 Candles, an ’80s pop cover band, at 8 p.m. Monday features the retro rock of Rick Lindy and the Wild Ones at noon and ARRA Classic Rock at 3:30 p.m.
“We have a great group of regional acts that are super popular. Everybody loves them,” Coleman said. “It’s a nice mix. We’ve got some ’80s music, a boy band, some Motown and hard rock and classic rock. These are songs that everyone knows, and it’s a lot of fun.”
The schedule is also filled with family activities, including dance exhibitions, crafts, animal encounters, eating contests, and martial arts displays.
“We really enjoy providing a wide variety of activities for families to participate in,” Coleman said.
The Labor Day Parade returns this year, starting at Naperville North High School at 10 a.m. Sept. 5 and running through downtown to Naperville Central High School. The carnival will run all four days of the festival, offering rides, games and other entertainment.
“We are doing what we can to make this what it was intended to be in the beginning,” Coleman said. “It’s a fundraiser to support the community, and it’s about celebrating what it means to be together here in Naperville.”
Naperville Jaycees’ Last Fling
When: Sept. 2-5
Where: Jackson Avenue in downtown Naperville
Tickets: Free admission
Information: 630-961-4143; lastfling.org
Jeff Banowetz is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
