Custer Fair

Growing up in Evanston, the Custer Street Fair has always been one of my absolute favorite summer fesivals. Rich in culture and diversity, the various vendor booths are spread out in a relatively small space that wraps around on Custer Ave, Main St, and Chicago Ave, in south Evanston. It’s fun to walk around and see people, and see what’s being offered. There’s something for everyone! Jewelry, artwork, candles, household goods, clothes, gift-​type items, you name it!
Decent festival food and live entertainment, too. They ask for a suggested donation, yet it’s optional. This fest takes place every summer in June. Come out and enjoy!

Not a bad festival. Good activities for kids. But, festival food is priced very high.

This fest was huge!!! I like how it’s almost like a maze. Everywhere you turn are new various booths. Very family friendly festival. Lots of children entertainment and also musical entertainment for the adults. Great Reggae band.
Not as many food items to choose from as other fest, but still good choices. I had the BBQ tip dinner plate. I wish the candied yams were a little bit sweeter, but still a good value for $ 10. Most fest charge at least a $ 5 donation, but this one has a suggested donation of a $ 1. I still didn’t pay it, but thought that was way more reasonable than other fest.
I wasn’t planning on spending as much money as I did. I had to buy the cherry blossom body butter (smelled too good to pass up). Also, I finally found the perfect gift for my friends home warming. A beautiful candle in a wine glass. Great and fun fest!

One of the worst street fests I’ve ever been to.
One redeeming thing was massage-​by-​the-​minute at a few places
Other than that, it was $ 5 ripoff designer sunglasses, 5 separate booths with gutter guards, a guy selling snapshots of downtown for $ 900, cruddy beads, some stupid car test drive thing, nasty fair food (deep fried blank on a stick), and pretty much nothing else I wanted.

This is now in my top five favorite festivals in Chicagoland. Naperville Ribfest is first and nothing else comes close but this is definitely up there and a different event anyway.
It is on four interlocking streets with Custer Avenue and Main Street being the main thoroughfares. There are lots of fun artsy booths and lots of street performers and a small stage and big stage and one small row of food vendors.
They definiely could use more food vendors. They have the standard carnival type food vendors and they had this Greek vendor that actually looked better than it tasted as the chicken shish kabobs that looked sooo plump and yummy were actually, chicken jerkey and dry as cardboard. I really enjoyed the Polish platter that was ridiculously heavy on a hot summer day but my husband and I shared and nearly licked the plate clean. There is no seating for eating except a small patchy area of dirt and grass and litter along the train tracks. It wasn’t ideal but it was shaded and that’s what we needed at that time. The food situation definitely holds this place back. Though a Park Ridge based Italian Ice cart on one of the side streets was so so delish.
I enjoyed seeing art I hadn’t seen at many of the other fairs. But the street performers were my favorite. There was a Renaissance Fair quality about it.
The crème de la crème of the whole hot sticky day was the Piccolo Theatre performance. This was an unexpected diversion to the day. A wandering costumed actress told mee lad and lassie of a sword fight to take place at 2 o clock up the stairs in a tiny theatre that used to be a train depot or maybe is still a train depot. Whatever it was, it is the most unique theatre I have been in. And they were great. I guess, they did shows throughout the day all day, for free. Think the complete works of Shakespeare in 30 minutes. It was fun and silly and kid friendly and there was sword fighting. And did I mention it was blissfuly air conditioned?
Really a nice festival. We will be back. And afterward we went swimming in the not too far away Greenwood Beach where the water was a shockingly cold 40 degrees, or so it felt. No more heat stroke.

The good of this fair was really good. A really nice variety of vendors. The bad of this fair was… well…the section with the mostly mass produced world crafts… and one statement silk screen t-shirts…um…was not my favorite.
Despite the bad, the good makes it worth going.
I really liked the energy of the people who came to the fair in costume.
Reminded me a lot of the fairs I would do in Oregon.
The saddest part of this show was the super low attendance.
Where were you Chicago? It was a beautiful weekend… there were some really unique booths… there was some really good music and food… I think the cover was a suggested donation…
It’s a great fair and I can only hope more people will come out to support it next year.

Unless you’re under 10 or over 60, this is pretty boring. The food isn’t very good and the craft booths are embarrassing. There’s no reason to go to this fair. And the food is overcooked and very unhealthy. And doesn’t even taste very good.

This was HUGe — I definitely expect it to be as large as it was. There was so much available in terms of food from Greek gyros to Mediterranean hummus and burgers and meats and Italian ice!
Not only is there entertainment and live music but there’s also a lot of local artwork, painters, jewelry, photographers, and boutiques, as well. I look forward to coming back here again with an empty stomach and more cash on hand!

This is one of the better Fairs in Chicagoland to attend. Tons of exhibitors showcasing everything imaginable in the world of Arts. I personally like visiting the artists underneath the viaduct, they are cool, interesting and quite talented. Custer rules!

Custer’s Last Stand is definitely one of my favorite street fairs in Chicagoland. It’s like many other art fairs, but certain aspects set it apart. For one, it covers a relatively small geographic area so it’s manageable. Interestingly though, despite the relatively small area, it doesn’t feel too crowded (unlike some other art fairs in the region).
A nice variety of vendors sell their items from the usual to the less common. Additionally, some of the local stores (i.e., the ones on Main St.) set up stands as well. I’ve bought great jewelry here on several occasions in the past in addition to other items.
The variety of foods available is also considerable. There are the usual street fair fried goods, but also healthy juices and smoothies.
Finally, a musical stage is set up on the corner of Main and Chicago facing south and performers entertain participants throughout the event. There is also other types of entertainment on the corner of Custer Ave and Washington St.
The event is free (with suggested donations).

unlike many art fairs, the ratio of quality, hand-​crafted goods vs. tacky crap is quite high. lots of interesting stuff, and a good variety of it. pottery, jewelry, photography, woodwork, children’s items, clothing, prints etc.
to add to my festing pleasure, there was also food (i had chicken gyros… yum), music and nice open pathways. the crowd was never overwhelming until the creepy clown parade made it’s way through.

I thought to myself, why are they naming a festival after General Custer? What boggled me even more was the image of a dancing American Indian on their website and flyers. Did they not know that General Custer essentially supported Indian genocide? How ironic.
Then I realized, Custer is actually a name of a street in Evanston. D’oh.
I enjoyed Custer’s Last Stand Festival more than the Ethnic Arts Festival (July). For one, all the vendors are in a smaller area, so there’s no need for much walking. Many different crafts and clothing from African sculpture to rock candles to ethnic-​looking maxi dresses to organic onesies for babies. I particularly enjoyed the work of photographers as they were very inspiring. As for the food, there’s the standard festival fare like hot dogs and gyros, but some vegetarian dishes like spicy tempeh and vegetable tempura and fried rice. The funnel cakes were definitely not worth $ 9.
I was very peeved when I asked about Pad Thai at one of the food vendors. She says it was vegetarian, and I asked if it had fish sauce and she nodded. «I’m a vegetarian, but I only eat seafood», she said. Sorry, but vegetarians do not eat seafood. Period. If an animal belongs to the Animalia classification, it is considered meat. (This rant has no effect on my rating.)
Anyway, great summer festival. Many, many different vendors showcasing their crafts and art. Entertainment for the whole family (including temporary tattoos and facepainting and toys for sale). It’s free (with suggest donation).