Community Corner

Haley Reinhart to Headline Buffalo Grove Days

Buffalo Grove Days will run from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2. Here's a look at what fest-goers can expect in 2013.

Loyal Buffalo Grove Days attendees will find their favorite rides, games and food at this year’s festival, but visitors will find some new aspects, too.

“There are so many things that we do that are consistent year to year, but we make little tweaks to keep it fresh,” said Buffalo Grove resident Alan Danenberg, who handles event publicity. “We’ve heard or found overall, the format and structure works. People love it, and we try to bring in new things every year based on what people say they like and didn’t like.”

The carnival, which will run on the south side of Lake-Cook Road at Raupp Boulevard, will feature a variety of games and rides, including the popular Ferris wheel, Fun Slide and Starship Gravitron.

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“All those spinny kinds of rides are coming,” Paulette Greenberg, the event’s co-chair, said.

On the opposite side of Lake-Cook, visitors will find the arts and crafts fair, business fair, food and beer tents and the main entertainment stage.

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 “One of the big highlights is going to be Saturday night. Haley Reinhart is going to be performing,” Danenberg said. Reinhart, a Wheeling resident who was an American Idol finalist in 2011, will also greet fans from a convertible in Sunday’s parade.

The parade will include around 100 units this year. “We’re pretty close to what our record has been,” Danenberg said.

This year’s parade, which will step off at 1 p.m. Sept. 1 at Bernard and Regent drives, will feature the Stevenson High School, Buffalo Grove High School and St. Mary School marching bands, as well as about a dozen Shriners groups, including bagpipers and horses, Greenberg said. 

Back on the festival grounds, visitors can peruse 53 arts and craft fair tents which will include a dozen jewelry vendors and a variety of other art such as tapestries, garden ornaments, handmade doll clothing, painting, wood art, ice collars and apparel.

The food tent will offer a variety of local cuisine, ranging from brats, sausage and steak sandwiches from Dorfler’s Meat Market to tacos, burritos and quesadillas from Grande Jake’s. New to the food tent this year are Hakuya Sushi, which will sell spicy tuna roll, spicy salmon rolls, California rolls and fried shrimp rolls, and JD’s Q & Brew, which will have a Cesar salad among its choices.

The adjacent beer tent will offer Bob Chinn’s mai tais for the first time this year.

Other main stage entertainers will include Buffalo Grove native Phil Jacobson, 16 Candles, Rumble Tone Blues Band, Reverie Dance Companies and American English. Beer garden performers will include Andrew Blendermann, Soul Chasers, Hutch & Hong, Barefoot Hawaiian Duo, The Blue Moondogs, Whitey O’Day, Pipe DreamsJose Cornier, Acoustic Generation and Industrial Drive.

“A lot of these groups have followings. There are people in the Chicago area who will check to see where these people are going to be,” Danenberg said.

Buffalo Grove Days will also offer a fireworks show Sunday night, a private event Monday morning for people with disabilities and the Buffalo Grove Rotary Club’s rubber duck race Monday afternoon.


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