Sheffield Garden Walk

this is a great event if you like a live band and 6 dollar beers, i must say that all of the
people/​party goers were nice, my problem was i work this event for WR EVENTS which picked up the trash, the owner who is a polish woman tells everybody she will be watching you, Saturday night i will not say she was drunk but acted liked she was and i think she was, she had no problems with my work, but on Sunday while i was working she told me she would be watching me, i worked in the parking lot (where the band was) everybody was great, her employee told me she wanted to talk to me so i went with him and she said that she was in the lot twice and she did not see me, i told her where i was and her employee backed me up, but she start acting stupid again so i told her no problem and gave her shirt and cap back, this lady has a big problem, i even ran into some of her people and the say the only reason they work for her is because she pays them in cash (no paper trail) maybe the gov. should check her books, but i will say i will never go work this event again, if you think i did something wrong then talk to me in private, not in front of other people
i could had went to the party but i do not drink so i just came home

We had a great time and will definitely go back next year. The gardens on display were very beautiful and unique. It was particularly fun when a garden was home and willing to talk with visitors.
We also did an architecture tour. The tour was fun and our leader, Kristen, did a great job.
I could take or leave the street festival portion. It was nice but not exceptional compared to any other street fest.

Don’t come to this event unless you are going to do the walk. Otherwise, it is just like every other over-​promoted festival. Living in Lincoln Park, I thought this was the perfect way to show my mom why I love it so much. She is also very much into gardening and looking at beautiful flowers. The map that is provided is helpful but some of the gardens didn’t even look like gardens! We would go out of our way to see certain streets but then when we got there, there wasn’t even a sign! The sites definitely needs to be better marked. Otherwise, I should just take my chances and walk around the neighborhood to stumble upon a garden myself. However, some of the gardens were absolutely beautiful and the people were so friendly. It was really a hit or miss at times. None of the bands stood out to me and the stage wasn’t very large. If they made some improvements to the garden part of the event, it could be a real winner.

No I didn’t do the walk. Totally wish I had, but throw drunk guys from our party into the mix and I just didn’t want to risk the embarrassment, or see someone’s very well-​tended garden ruined.
However I did enjoy the music and location of this festival. Of course you have your mix of super preppy yuppies and wasty 40-​something men looking for 20-​something boot-​ay, but there’s plenty of room to mill around and food fair other than the standard meat on a stick and piles of french fries. And thanks to the bar who so kindly thought to have misting water cascading down from their booth. It was a hot hot day and that cool cool water was just magical :)

Okay, so I’ve never attended the actual walk. I probably should do it one day with my Mom, I’m sure we’d enjoy it. However, I’ve been to the fest part several times, I try not to miss it! There’s not much to this fest, it’s not nearly as big as some of the others (aka Taste of Lincoln). However, SGW has the BEST music lineup!
This past Saturday we saw Cowboy Mouth and Sunday we saw Hello Dave. The only way to describe Cowboy Mouth is INTENSE, talk about a high energy rock and roll show! The drummer is the lead singer and you can’t help but me memorized by his energy!
The recipe for Hello Dave: take part Zac Brown, part Jimmy Buffet, part Black Crows, sprinkle with Stevie Ray Vaughn and add an ice cold Coors Light in a fest cup! Be sure to check out one of their signature songs «Summer in Chicago». These guys have been over to the Middle East to play for our Troops — can that be any cooler???
Go to Sheffield Garden Walk if your a live music junkie like me. No fluff, just the good stuff.

Sheffield Garden Walk? That’s about one-​third accurate in describing this fest.
Sheffield? Yes, the fest is on Sheffield. Spot on!
Garden? I have to say I didn’t see any gardens other than one on Webster where the lady had a bunch of her hats propped on plants.
Walk? You can’t even move at this fest it’s so crowded.
This fest is one of the more crowded fests of the year. We walked no more than 150 yards north from Webster because the crowd was so dense. It really got suffocating once enmeshed in the crowd coupled with the recent heat.
The beer situation wasn’t too bad. They had a ticket setup whereby each ticket was five dollars. Then you’d walk six feet from the ticket booth to the beer tent. Strange. But the lines flowed quickly, so it wasn’t a hassle.
As to the music, the acoustics were such that I couldn’t distinguish what songs were being played. The band sounded awful, and it was made worse by the sound phasing due to bouncing off the church buildings.
To top off the evening, there was the first ex sighting of the summer. I love how you can’t go very long without running into your exes in this city. Big city, small world.
There are much better fests in the city during the summer. This one is just okay. Two stars.

A fantastic summer event for a girls’ gathering. Went with a few girlfriends and enjoyed the workout from garden to garden and seeing a different part of the city we normally wouldn’t have explored.
Many of the featured homeowners are on hand to discuss with you about their garden. It was fantastic getting to meet these people and learn about their homes. One woman told us they had bought the lot next to them, converted the land to this garden, then sent us home with fresh basil and rosemary from her garden.
We didn’t really plan out our route, but this year we will be sure to as well as devote a whole day to the event. We went a bit later in the afternoon and didn’t get to see all we wanted.
Even if you’re not a horticulturist or a floral lover, the walk is still a must. It’s insane to see how people have transformed their gardens on their lots. You’ll feel like your in gardens of Europe during most of the time.

This was a great excuse for us to get out and explore this neighborhood. The gardens are all pretty small, so some of the focus is also on the architecture surrounding these landscaped spaces. Be prepared to squeeze through narrow spaces between homes (nice and cool on a hot day) to get to some of the backyards. And some of the gardens are front yards. There was really a surprising range of gardening styles in these spaces. We briefly checked out the festival going on next to the church, but having been to pitchfork the previous day, we weren’t really feeling up for more of that sort of thing, and instead focused on the garden walk.

Hmm… 3 ½ stars. For the festival. Is there really a garden walk? One would think so, but I didn’t experience it.
The major positive is this festival had local and awesome band, Freddy Jones Band. I was super psyched to see them. They rock! Oh, and they had Blue Moon. The beer lines were very manageable. The stage lights and sound were pretty good as well.
However, holy moly I have never been that packed in a festival. Maybe it was because there was only one stage, but it was a complete sardine can experience, complete with way too many frat boys and trixies who didn’t care about the band, but wanted to concentrate on planning their hookups and spilling beer.
That said, the rest of the people at the festival were an eclectic group, a variety of ages and backgrounds. The problem was there were so many damn people! It is a great social anthropology study. If you can stand immense crowds, and you like the band playing, head on over.

Well, I was happy to see that someone else actually reviewed this event. I will preface this with the fact that while I’ve lived here in Chicago many years and heard about the event, I never went until this year. I had pictured it as an informal stroll along the street Sheffield, but did not know the extent of the walk. It’s the entire Sheffield community, and covers about 30 square blocks and the De Paul University campus. Since I’m an old geezer gardener myself, I had a great time checking out people’s private gardens, chatting with them, sitting and hearing incredible stories of African safari’s and other animal encounters in one incredible tree-​filled back yard on Magnolia. Where else can you so something like this? The series of front yard gardens on Clifton which I’d never seen. The really old 19^th Century Chicago cottages built after the big fire. Narrow alleys and gangways. Sitting around and hangin’ in other strangers’ backyards. How un-​urban is that? I would recommend this for anyone who likes history, architecture, exploration, walking, and of course, gardens.
I may have visited one third of the 96 gardens, before running into a friend at the beer stand. We grabbed a beer and listened to a great Chicago band, Catfish Haven.
As summer festivals go, I liked it because it was not too crowded, it was not expensive ($ 6.00 to enter) and there was quite a line-​up of bands. There were places to actually sit if you bought food. If you want to visit all the gardens, you probably need to go both Saturday and Sunday. The crowd was friendly. The people watching fun. It’s definitely on my list for next year. And I would recommend it to visitors or anyone who is new to the city. Gives you a real feel for a typical (well, OK, it’s awfully affluent, actually) Chicago community. If you go, and you like architecture, make sure to check out the McCormick Row Houses in De Paul (enter from Belden just west of Halsted), and stroll through their beautiful wooded alleys. You’ll think you died and went to some British village. Of course, you can do that anytime.

A street festival serving Blue Moon? Splendid!
The U2 cover band, Elevation, was pretty good — however, the crowd just didn’t seem to be feeling it.
This was also an educational experience. I never knew that plaid shorts came in such a diverse array — short, long, small plaid, big plaid, men’s, women’s, kids, bright, dark — OVERWHELMED! I think about 50% of the population at this event were wearing said shorts.
Other than the aforementioned attributes, I have very little to say. I was underwhelmed by the selection of things to entertain me. Decent food offerings. Good brews. No little kiosks selling useless crap. No second stage. WAY overpriced.