PHOTOS: DarienFest Organizers Looking for Feedback

About 25,000 people came out for DarienFest this year. This year's event was organized by Clare Bongiovanni, president of the Darien Chamber of Commerce.

New to the festival this year was the addition of Darien Idol and Battle of the Bands competition.

"I changed the entertainment around big time this year, because of people saying 'we want something different'," said Bongiovanni. "Maybe next year on Sunday we could just have all the local jazz bands, like the and Downers Grove South jazz bands."

This is Bongiovanni's first year organizing the event, and she said she is looking for feedback from the community about what they would like to see next year.

Handicapped parking issue

Another change this year that people noticed was a reduction of the number of handicapped parking spaces for the festival. Prior to this year, the north side parking lot near the festival was known as the "handicapped parking lot," but this year, only four spots in the lot were allotted for handicapped parking.

Bongiovanni said that the reason for that was the park district's rule that no vehicles could be allowed into the park.

"In the past we could drive cars up into the park, which freed that lot up. Bands used to be able to drive behind the stage and unload the equipment. The park district would not allow that, and the bands had a lot of equipment, so I had to take that parking lot and allow 14 parking spots for the band," said Bongiovanni.

Bongiovanni said that volunteers monitoring the lot were told to keep an eye out for open spaces to allow in as many people as possible, who needed access to parking for the handicapped.

"The biggest frustration was that there was no parking, but we had to respect the park district," said Bongiovanni. "We are going to assess and figure out something for next year. Maybe we can have parking at Hinsdale South and have volunteers help shuttle handicapped [drivers to the festival.] We really don’t have a choice. We did the best that we could."