Our stage in 2003.

Though a lot of our employees are rock stars, North Shore Bank isn’t generally associated with actual rock stars. That wasn’t the case back in 2003, though, when we sponsored the North Shore Bank Landing Stage at that year’s Summerfest at Henry Maier Festival Park.

Area officials showed up for an opening ceremony and ribbon cutting for the North Shore Bank Landing Stage.

The artists who appeared on our stage included the Wallflowers, Wilco, Fountains of Wayne, the Boogie Men, and headliner “Weird Al” Yankovic.

A “rock star’s view” from our stage at the opening ceremony.

As a Shorelines article from that year notes, sponsoring the stage gave the bank “tremendous visibility.” The annual music festival, first held in 1968, attracts hundreds of thousands of attendees each year. (Guinness World Records certified Summerfest’s claim to be “The World’s Largest Music Festival” in 1999, but Germany’s Donauinselfest overtook it in 2015.)

Our sponsorship came with perks for our customers: On one Sunday, the first 3,000 attendees who could show they were North Shore Bank customers got in free if they also made a donation to our school-supply drive. Another promotion offered two free Summerfest tickets to those who opened a new checking account with us; and customers could also register for the chance to win a Summerfest VIP package.

We sponsored the stage for only one year, after which we switched to sponsoring the on-site ATMs at Summerfest and other festivals at the park. Naturally, that meant North Shore Bank customers paid no fees to withdraw cash.