They Invented House Music in Chicago Basements. 36 Years Later, They're Still Playing the Same Park.

What made four Chicago teenagers start a picnic in the first place?

In 1977, Wayne Williams pulled together a crew of South Side DJs, including Jesse Saunders, Tony Hatchett, Alan King and Andre Hatchett, playing house parties, basements and school cafeterias years before the world had a name for the music they were spinning. By the early 1980s they were packing legendary Chicago spots, and Saunders went on to release "On & On" in 1984, one of the first house records ever pressed to vinyl. In 1990, Williams and his old friend Kim Parham floated a simple idea: invite the old crowd back for a reunion picnic behind the Museum of Science and Industry. Thirty six years on, that backyard gathering has become the Chosen Few Picnic and House Music Festival, and the same founding DJs still take turns on the one stage they've always insisted on.

How does one stage in Jackson Park pull tens of thousands of people?

The 36th edition landed July 11, 2026, running 10am to 5pm at Jackson Park's 63rd Street and Hayes Drive gate, per 5 Magazine. There is no lineup split across side stages or a hidden VIP tent chasing a headliner. Alan King has said the crew keeps it to one stage on purpose, to protect the feel of a family reunion instead of a festival built for a livestream.

Alan King told the Hyde Park Herald:

"We've stuck to a formula. We have one stage. We don't have multiple stages."

Live sets this year came from Barbara Tucker, Curtis McClain and Christine Wiltshire, while DJ Jazzy Jeff made his picnic debut behind the decks alongside Terry Hunter, Mike Dunn and Andre Hatchett. Terry Hunter's son, Tai, played too, by most accounts becoming the youngest DJ to ever work the picnic's stage.

What actually changed at the 36th edition?

Organizers used the anniversary to widen who counts as part of Chicago's house lineage, adding DJ Slugo and South Side mixer Boolu Master to represent ghetto house and juke, the faster, stripped down styles that grew out of house through the 1990s and 2000s. "Slugo and Boolu from the crib. They represent house music. Juke comes from house," Terry Hunter told The TRiiBE. For Slugo, it was a first: "I'm grateful to be here. It's my first time ever playing this. I don't think it's my last."