12 Arts & Entertainment Carrot Top got his start as a student at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton during his freshman year. John Ferak , Patch Staff Posted | Updated Replies JOLIET, IL — The Rialto Square Theatre just announced that comedian Carrot Top will be taking the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, May 20, 2022. Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 22. The cost to see Carrot Top in Joliet will be $69, $59, $49 and $39. Additional fees may apply if you buy your tickets online. According to the Rialto's marketing staff: "Scott 'Carrot Top' Thompson has been making audiences around the world laugh for more than three decades. Since his debut on 'Star Search,' Carrot Top has soared to success and became one of the most recognizable entertainers in the world. Since 2005, fans have flocked to his Las Vegas headlining residency at Luxor Hotel and Casino to catch comedy's King of Props induce … [Read more...]

7 Community Corner The event takes place from noon to 11 p.m. Saturday at the Van Buren Street Plaza in downtown Joliet. John Ferak , Patch Staff Posted Replies JOLIET, IL — One week after celebrating New Orleans North, downtown Joliet will be the site of another major community festival. This Saturday marks the Joliet Latino Music and Food Festival. The event is from noon to 11 p.m. at the Van Buren Plaza. Tickets are $15 if you buy them in advance. Otherwise, it's $20 at the gate. Children 12 and younger are free. The daylong event will include several hours of live music, authentic Mexican food, a Mexican craft beer and cocktail tent, kids zone and bouncy houses. There will also be a mechanical bull available for riding from 5 to 9 p.m. A vaccination clinic will be available for guests starting as early as 11 a.m. and remaining open until 8 p.m. You can buy your tickets online through Unidos Marketing at the … [Read more...]

0 Community Corner It's the weekend! Fun Fact: The Bears fan-kid who Aaron Rogers says is a reason he has a soft-spot for Chicago is from Arlington Heights. Mark Konkol , Patch Staff Posted | Updated Reply Before settling in to watch the Bears take on Green Bay Sunday — in what could be Aaron Rodgers last game at Soldier Field in a Packers uniform — check out Patch's Jeff Arnold's column on the kid whose encounter with the future Hall of Famer downtown in 2017 went viral on Twitter this week. The irony: Pete Nicoll is high schooler in Arlington Heights , possibly the future home of the Bears. Saturday: Go fly a kite. High: 58 Low: 48. Sunday: Sunny. High: 66 Low: 49 Will anti-vax cops get the blue flu over the city's vaccine mandate for all employees? Mayor Lori Lightfoot filed a lawsuit in attempt to make sure that doesn't happen. Police union boss John Catanzara clapped back. ( Patch ) The … [Read more...]

A few days after the spectacular collapse of the Fyre Festival , just as federal investigators began to circle the wreckage, the event’s would-be mastermind, Billy McFarland, was still making promises. His failed event was sold on social media by the likes of Kendall Jenner as an ultraluxurious musical getaway in the Bahamas. Scheduled for two weekends starting in late April, it was supposed to up the ante in the competitive festival market. Instead, Fyre had become a punch line for its aborted opening , with reports of panicked millennials scrounging for makeshift shelter on a dark beach. Yet, speaking on May 2 with unnerved employees at his TriBeCa office — with its $30,000 sound system and frequent fashion-model visitors — Mr. McFarland deflected blame and vowed that Fyre would survive to mount another festival next year. The coverage had been “sensationalized,” he insisted, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times. (Fyre has attributed its … [Read more...]

Nearly four years after an infamous festival that was billed as an ultraluxurious musical getaway in the Bahamas left attendees scrounging for makeshift shelter on a dark beach, a court has decided how much the nightmare was worth: approximately $7,220 apiece. The $2 million class-action settlement, reached Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York between organizers and 277 ticket holders from the 2017 event, is still subject to final approval, and the amount could ultimately be lower depending on the outcome of Fyre’s bankruptcy case with other creditors. But Ben Meiselas, a partner at Geragos & Geragos and the lead lawyer representing the ticket holders, said on Thursday that he was happy a resolution had at last been reached. “Billy went to jail, ticket holders can get some money back, and some very entertaining documentaries were made,” Meiselas said in an email mentioning Billy McFarland, the event’s mastermind. “Now that’s justice.” … [Read more...]

2 DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Like other ranchers across the country, Rusty Kemp for years grumbled about rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska, even as the cost of beef at grocery stores kept climbing. He and his neighbors blamed it on consolidation in the beef industry stretching back to the 1970s that resulted in four companies slaughtering over 80% of the nation’s cattle, giving the processors more power to set prices while ranchers struggled to make a living. Federal data show that for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers dropped from 35 cents in the 1970s to 14 cents recently. It led Kemp to launch an audacious plan: Raise more than $300 million from ranchers to build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands. “We’ve been complaining about it for 30 years,” Kemp said. “It’s probably time somebody does something about it.” Crews will start work this fall building the … [Read more...]