Chicago airports

St. Patrick’s Day events at Chicago Airports

ORD ST PAT

Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway Airports are joining the citywide celebration of St. Patrick’s Day with Irish dancing, green beer, live Celtic music and… roaming leprechauns.

Festivities at both O’Hare and Midway include the famous Trinity Irish Dancers on Friday, March 13, with performances from 5-7 p.m. in Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 5 at O’Hare and from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Concourse A at Midway.

Live Celtic music from Sean Sullivan and his band One of The Girls will take place on Monday, March 16 from 4:30-7 p.m. at Chicago O’Hare Terminal 5 on the post-security side of the terminal.

And on St. Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17, concessions throughout both airports will offer dozens of “Shamrock Specials” ranging from green beer, green popcorn and a wide variety of green merchandise. Leprechauns will also be popping up at both O’Hare and Midway and anyone who snaps a selfie with the Irish fairy can post the photo on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook (use hashtag #IrishatORD or #IrishatMDW) and share treats from, you guessed it, a pot of gold.

Chicago airports get their own radio stations

Farmer listening to radio - courtesy U.S. National Archives

Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports now have their own radio stations.

The 24-hour “AIR Chicago” was created for the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) by Clear Chanel Airports, a division of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., and features smooth jazz music interspersed with airport traffic and weather reports, business news, information about the airports and advertising.

Clear Channel has the indoor advertising contract at the Chicago airports “and this was an opportunity to start a different kind of branding, get more people interested in what we do at the airport, and reach out to a lot more people,” said Karen Pride, CDA spokeswoman.

Pride said the CDA has already recorded “vignettes” about holiday travel that will begin running on AIR Chicago in December and is working on others that might cover everything from sustainability efforts underway at the airports to the art and live music programs offered. There might also be opportunities for airline partners to record messages.

“There are a lot of applications that could be integrated into AIR Chicago,” said Pride. “The possibilities are endless.”

The AIR Chicago programming can be found on iHeartRadio.com and the iHeartRadio app, on the CDA’s website, and on Clear Channel’s local HD2 digital station, WKSC-FM/103.5 KISS FM.

While AIR Chicago is the first 24-hour radio station dedicated to information about the Chicago airports, it is not the first airport radio station. Some airports, such as Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, have low-power AM radio stations broadcasting airport parking and traffic information, with the audio also available online. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport offers a web radio player showcasing northwest music.