Obama Presidential Center free watch party for grand opening to be held on Midway Plaisance on June 18
The Obama Foundation will host an official watch party for the Obama Presidential Center and Library grand opening on Midway Plaisance in June.
The watch party will be held on June 18, the day of the official grand opening and the day before the presidential center is open to the general public. The foundation said attendees will be able to watch a livestream of the event in a free, picnic-style atmosphere.
There will also be an art market featuring local vendors and community organizers.
Tickets to visit the museum and library went on sale to the public on May 6, and the public opening is on Juneteenth. The Obama Presidential Center is located on the east end of the Midway Plaisance in Jackson Park.
"So I'm excited for people to be able to walk through these doors and see what we've been working on the last few years," said Josh Harris, vice president of public engagement for the Obama Foundation.
The foundation expects 10,000 people or more to pack the Midway Plaisance for the watch party.
The watch party will open at 9 a.m. There will be a live DJ and pre-ceremony activities, an ADA viewing area and accessible restroom. There will be no parking on site, so organizers strongly encourage attendees to use CTA and Metra to get there.
The grand opening ceremony will be held at 11 a.m., with an official dedication and celebration.
If you want to attend the official watch party, you must fill out a form for up to four tickets by May 26 at the Obama Foundation website. Officials warn that space at the watch party is limited and filling out the form does not guarantee you'll get a ticket. You must have a ticket to attend.
The park itself is rich with Chicago history. Chris Skrable, executive director of Chicago Studies at the University of Chicago, called the Midway Plaisance "one of the most historically significant landscapes in the city of Chicago."
The park was designed by the same duo behind New York City's Central Park, and it was home to major attractions during the 1893 World's Fair, including the very first Ferris wheel.
"So, it could hoist about 2,200 people 18 stories up in the air. An absolutely incredible achievement," Skrable said. "The foundations of that are located where the ice rink is now in the middle of the Midway."
More than a century later – 133 years to be precise – the plaisance is playing host once again.
"This is a way for a lot of these folks to be able to feel like they are part of this moment in time and moment in history with us," Harris said.
The grand opening ceremony will also be streamed online at Obama.org and on the Obama Foundation's social media pages.
Museum tickets are sold out for the opening weekend, but the Obama Foundation said the rest of the center's campus is free and accessible to the general public even if they don't have a ticket to go inside.
