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Wait 'Til Next Year: Figment Festival Postponed Until 2016

 The festival, which had its first Chicago event in Garfield Park last year, will move to Jefferson Park this year.
Figment Festival
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JEFFERSON PARK — A participatory art festival that brought nearly a thousand people to Jefferson Memorial Park in August won't return this summer, organizers said.

The date organizers wanted to hold the festival wasn't available, one producer of the event is due to have a baby in August and another moved to Colorado, said David Shuey, a spokesman for the festival.

"We just decided to do it bigger and better next year," Shuey said. "We do hope we can return to the 45th Ward if it all works out."

The Figment Festival, which features just about every kind of art imaginable except the kind that hangs on walls or sits in a gallery, drew 4,000 people to Garfield Park in 2013, and moved to Jefferson Memorial Park, 4822 N. Long Ave., a year later.

Figment Festivals, which take place all over the world, are designed to showcase "art that encourages participants to play, dance, sing, create, engage, experiment and explore their environment," according to the festival's website.

Festival leaders are looking for volunteers to help organize the 2016 event. The first meeting for the 2016 festival will take place at 6:30 p.m. June 30 at Happy Village, 1059 N. Wolcott Ave., organizers said.

The first order of business: finding a location for the festival — one that is ideally is open to hosting fire art projects, organizers said.

The festival also needs indoor space for storage and volunteers, access to electricity and water, parking and access to public transportation, organizers said.

For more information, email chicago@figmentchicago.orgor take organizers' online survey.

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