<\/p>\n
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – Over the past year, the Rockford Area Venues and Entertainment Authority (RAVE) has overseen 165 shows between the BMO Center, Coronado Theatre, and Davis Park, but only four were at Davis Park.<\/p>\n
Entertainment board leaders said they\u2019re hopeful park renovations will increase this number. RAVE General Manager Gretchen Gilmore said the board\u2019s overseen the most shows in the last five years and credits their success to its ability to adapt and serve the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did lose a lot of shows this year due to other competition in the market. We had to expand our show offerings and have more diverse programming,\u201d said Gilmore.<\/p>\n
Gilmore said one challenge they face is overproduction from the stadium industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Taylor Swift and Beyonc\u00e9 concerts are taking that out of the market. Smaller arenas like us aren\u2019t having as many concerts and comedy shows,\u201d said Gilmore.<\/p>\n
Gilmore said they\u2019ve also been a key part of Davis Park renovations. City council approved the redevelopment project Monday. City leaders said construction may start in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of great events, activities, and memories built up at Davis Park throughout the years: When you think of the waterfront, some of the other concerts that took place,\u201d said Rockford City Administrator Todd Cagnoni. \u201cBut the other amenities weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A key piece of the project is the stage, which is larger than 60 feet by 40 feet. Cagnoni said it resembles a similar design from other out-of-state parks. This allows the venue to host a variety of events in addition to concerts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have an event on the stage to an audience on the great lawn or the back side of the stage, such as Friday Night Flix,\u201d said Cagnoni.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to program it. It\u2019s going to be interesting to see how this first year plays out,\u201d said Gilmore.<\/p>\n
Davis Park will also have a universally accessible playground, skate park and six art pieces. Some of those pieces are being brought back. They are also revamping the river walk.<\/p>\n
Cagnoni said the city has an \u201caggressive goal\u201d to complete the project by June 2026, weather dependent.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WIFR. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wifr.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – Over the past year, the Rockford Area Venues and Entertainment Authority (RAVE) has overseen 165 shows between the BMO Center, Coronado Theatre, and Davis Park, but only four were at Davis Park. Entertainment board leaders said they\u2019re hopeful park renovations will increase this number. RAVE General Manager Gretchen Gilmore said the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[352236,21741,346405,352237,352238,352239,335051,352240],"class_list":["post-1974283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-davis-park","tag-entertainment","tag-rave","tag-rave-board","tag-redevelopment","tag-redevelopment-project","tag-rockford","tag-rockford-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}