CU in the Summer

If you are sticking around for a Champaign-Urbana summer, you’ll have no shortage of festivals and events. We have the scoop on the most popular festivals you won’t want to miss, plus a few cool tips for summer in CU.

Homer Soda Festival – Saturday, June 3 10am-7pm
Homer Soda Festival
Taste the rainbow at the Homer Soda Festival! Purchase 10 tasting tickets for $4 or choose unlimited tastings for $15. While you’re tasting dozens of pop flavors you never knew existed, like Americana Huckleberry or Prickly Pear, enjoy music, art, a Classic Car show, food, and a BBQ cook off. Grab a friend with a car and head out to Downtown Homer for this classic annual event!

Uncork Urbana Wine Festival – Saturday, June 10 3-10pm

For $15 admission, you receive a souvenir wine glass and 7 tasting tickets (5 tickets if you purchase admission at the door!). With these tasting tickets, attendees can try wines from a number of regional wineries! This is a Glambana event you can’t miss. Don’t forget: this year it’s been moved to the well-loved Meadowbrook park rather than its downtown Urbana location of previous years. This year will also feature local live music, food trucks, and live cooking demonstrations.

StreetFest – Saturday, June 10 and Saturday, July 15 7pm-Midnight
StreetFest
After Uncork Urbana, head to downtown Champaign for StreetFest! Or, if you won’t be around June 10, catch it the second time around on July 15. StreetFest is an annual free music and food festival featuring local bands and food. So why is it called StreetFest? Yup, it’s on the street! So join your friends on the corner of Neil & Main or Walnut & University to listen to bands that call CU home.

Blues, Brews, and BBQ Festival – Friday, June 23-Saturday, June 24
Blues, Brews, and BBQ Fest
This two-day festival in Downtown Champaign celebrates local breweries, music, and BBQ. The lineup hasn’t been announced yet, but if you’re a fan of blues, be sure to check their website for updates about this year’s festival!

Taste of Champaign-Urbana – Friday August 18-Saturday, August 19, 5pm-11pm and 11am-11pm

Taste of Champaign-Urbana is an annual opportunity to celebrate local restaurants, art, beer, and music in West Side Park. Entrance to the festival is free, but purchase tickets to spend at food vendors. The entertainment list will be out in July! If you’re a runner, you can also join in on the Pie Run in West Side Park, then reward yourself with a good meal.

None of these are your jam? Looking for something else? There’s always something to do in CU! Check out the Champaign Farmers Market Tuesdays 3:30-6:30 or Urbana’s Market at the Square on Saturdays 7am-noon.

If you still don’t know what to do this summer, visit the Urbana Park District and Champaign Park District websites to find more events and summer fun! And, of course, if you’re ever bored, come enjoy the air conditioning at the UGL with a board game or a great book.

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July Events

The Fourth of July is over, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the month has to be a dud! We’re still open during our summer hours, but after we close, you don’t have to go home.

Photo Courtesy of UGL Media Commons

Photo Courtesy of UGL Media Commons

Photo Courtesy of Urbana Park District

Photo Courtesy of Urbana Park District

Free Yoga in the Park – Meadowbrook Park, Saturdays 9-10am from June 13-August 29

Get active this summer every Saturday with free yoga in Meadowbrook Park! Instructors provide modifications so you can practice at your own level. Bring a mat if you have one; only a few loaner mats are available.

Photo Courtesy of The Land Connection

Photo Courtesy of The Land Connection

Champaign Farmer’s Market – Tuesdays 4-7pm from May-October

For those who aren’t up early enough to do the Urbana Market in the Square Saturdays 9am-noon, Champaign offers an evening option. Stop by at the parking lot right outside of Big Grove Tavern and Kofusion in downtown Champaign to get fresh produce once a week.

Photo Courtesy of Champaign Park District

Photo Courtesy of Champaign Park District

StreetFest – Downtown Champaign, July 16 7pm-Midnight

If you missed StreetFest in June, or you just couldn’t get enough and want to go back, StreetFest is back on July 16 with a new band line-up. Channel your inner child with face painting, balloon animals, and sidewalk chalk or stop by the TCBY and Snack Shack food trucks.

Photo Courtesy of Illini Bands

Photo Courtesy of Illini Bands

Illini Summer Band Concert – Quad, July 21 7pm

For those who enjoy different music than StreetFest has to offer, the Illini Summer band will be performing on the Quad in the evening on Thursday, July 21. This free concert features music by Sousa, Khachaturian, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and more.

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June Events

Although campus seems empty, that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do this summer in good old Champaign-Urbana! This is only a selection of the bundles of events that will keep your social life sizzling this summer.

Photo Courtesy of UGL Media Commons

Photo Courtesy of UGL Media Commons

Photo Courtesy of Illini Union

Photo Courtesy of Illini Union

Copa America and UEFA Viewing at the Illini Union – June 3-26 and June 10-July 10 – Free

If you thought the Union would be deserted over the summer, think again! Visit the Courtyard Cafe in the Illini Union during these major soccer tournaments to see your favorite–and least favorite–teams duke it out on the field.

Photo Courtesy of Illini Union

Photo Courtesy of Illini Union

Eye in the Sky on the Quad – Thursday June 9, 9pm – Free

After a day of frollicking in the sun, enjoy a June night on the Quad with your friends and Alan Rickman! The Illini Union will be showing this film that explores ethics during war. With a 95% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and a pricetag of $0, there’s no excuse not to give it a chance.

Photo Taken from Facebook Event

Photo Taken from Facebook Event

The Princess Bride at the Virginia Theater – Monday June 13 and Tuesday June 14, 7pm – $4

Always wanted to see Wesley on the big screen? As you wish! This classic spoof on the Romantic Comedy movie genre is just one movie being shown as part of the Virginia Theater’s ROMCOM16 series. Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity would be better than missing this!

Photo Taken from Urbana Business Association Facebook

Photo Taken from Urbana Business Association Facebook

Uncork Urbana Wine Festival – Saturday June 18, 1-9pm – Admission $15 online, $20 at the gate (includes 5 tastings and souvenir glass)

For the 21 and up crowd, be sure to check out the Uncork Urbana Wine Festival this month. The festival features wine tasting, food trucks, and live music in downtown Urbana. Nab your tickets a couple days early to save $5 on admission!

Photo Taken from Champaign Parks Website

Photo Taken from Champaign Parks Website

StreetFest – Saturday June 18, 7pm-Midnight – Free

This annual live music event also features food and drinks from all your favorite local spots. Enjoy the great June weather with bands The New and Slightly Used, Sun Stereo, and Jim Markum Swing Band. If you can’t make it in June, StreetFest will be back with new bands on July 16.

Photo Taken from Lola's Brush

Photo Taken from Lola’s Brush

Wine Bottle Painting at Lola’s Brush – Wednesday June 22, 6-8pm – $20

Paint a wine bottle and get a little tipsy at this BYOB event at Lola’s Brush in Champaign. Admission includes materials. If you can’t make it on this day, don’t fret! There are BYOB painting events at Lola’s throughout the summer, including a couple’s paint and wine glass painting.

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Reader’s Advisory: Halloween Graphic Novels

Well Club UGLers, it is getting ever closer to Halloween which means it’s time to make costumes, eat candy corn, and scare ourselves with movies, books, and haunted houses. In this week’s Reader’s Advisory, we are going to give you some graphic novel reading suggestions that up the ante on chills, thrills, and blood. The Undergraduate Library has one of the biggest graphic novel collections in the country, so stay tuned because there is bound to be something you’ll like.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Broshol

Anya’s Ghost, by Russian-American Vera Broshol, is a creepy, yet tame, ghost story option for those who prefer not to be kept up at night. Anya is a Russian immigrant navigating high school with no friends and low self-esteem when she unexpectedly falls into a well and meets a ghost. When Anya is rescued, she also rescues the ghost, who she adopts as her new best friend. The best laid plans go awry in this ghostly graphic novel perfect for someone who gets a bit squeamish in a horror film!

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

If your favorite part of a graphic novel is the artwork, Through the Woods is sure to suit your tastes. This horror graphic novel by Canadian lesbian author Emily Carroll is composed of five spine-tingling fairy tales gone wrong. From kidnapped sisters in the cold winter to a murdered wife’s ghost, these five tales and the horrifically beautiful depictions will be just creepy enough for people who like fear without the gore.

Dark Metro by Tokyo Calen and illustrated by Yoshiken

For those who prefer manga, Dark Metro is a perfect Halloween choice. This exploration of the Tokyo underground beneath the subways. The boundaries between life and death are challenged by those who spend time here with Seiya, the guide of the land of the dead. These short stories about people preyed upon by the ghosts of the city’s terrifying underworld will please those who are a little into the dark side. This creepy manga has two volumes to keep you reading all Halloween weekend.

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb

If manga isn’t your thing, you could always go to the tried and true Batman for your source of Halloween entertainment. In Batman: The Long Halloween Batman must stop a serial killer called Holiday. Holiday is a crazed maniac who kills people every holiday. In this story, Batman’s greatest foe is defeating this villain while also wrestling with some of the most iconic members of his rogues gallery including Falcone, Two-Face, and the Joker. This graphic novel is sure to delight the murder-mystery fans in us all. Check this one out if you need to quench your superhero fix with a Halloween twist.

30 Days of Night by Steve Niles

Last on the list is easily the most brutal and bloody. 30 Days of Night, takes place in a small town in Alaska where the sun does not rise for 30 days. Vampires come to the town to openly kill and feed on the townspeople. How will this seemingly endless vampire rampage end? You could always check out the graphic novel! This graphic novel is definitely for fans of vampires – and those that aren’t on the squeamish side.

For more Halloween graphic novel suggestions, check out our handy chart:

Halloween Graphic Novels

Have any other suggestions for frightful graphic novels? Tweet at us (@askundergrad) or contact us on Facebook (Undergraduate Library at UIUC)! Happy reading, Club UGL!

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