We couldn't be more excited to have the organizers of the Midwest Perzine Fest joining us this year at Chicago Zine Fest! MWPZF will be an important part of CZF 2024—the organizers chose a selection of tablers to be a part of Perzine Alley, where you can find amazing creators who focus on the personal in their zines.

Please plan on joining the MWPZF zine swap and zinester reading happening at Skunk Cabbage Books in Avondale on Wednesday September 4th from 6-8 pm. This is a free, masks required event. We'll see you there!

We're delighted to reveal the Chicago Zine Fest 2024 poster, created by Mel Valentine Vargas! Mel is a queer Miwww.melvalentinev.com/ami-born, Chicago-based, Latine comic creator and illustrator. They work largely with digital media and have a BA in illustration from Columbia College Chicago. Check out their website at melvalentinev.com.

We couldn't be happier with Mel's artwork! Look for posters and postcards with the art at this year's CZF. 

Applications for the 2024 Chicago Zine Fest are now open! This year’s exhibition day will be taking place Saturday October 5 (11 am-6 pm) at the Columbia College Student Center (754 S Wabash Ave). 

Here’s how registration will work: 

We have a smaller venue this year, so space will be at a premium. Everyone who wants to table at CZF should apply using the registration form. The organizers will select 60% of tablers, and the other 40% of tablers will be chosen at random. We are partially curating the fest to ensure there are an appropriate number of BIPOC and other marginalized zinesters represented, as well as to provide space for our community partners.

Applications for CZF 2024 closed April 27th.

Hello CZF fans! We’ve gotten lots of questions about registration this year. We’ve been hard at work finding a new venue for Chicago Zine Fest 2024, and we’ve made some preliminary plans to ensure we have an accessible-to-all, centrally-located, affordable, beautiful space for the fest.

Since we won’t have a formal contract until the end of March, we can’t announce a date yet. But we’re hoping that the fest will be held in early October 2024 and that we’ll open tabler registration in early April 2024. Please keep an eye on the website and social media channels (we’re @chicagozinefest at Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) for more announcements about the fest and registration. As always, we're grateful for your enthusiasm and support!

Thank you to everyone who attended CZF 2023! We're grateful for all the tablers, volunteers, and visitors who made CZF weekend a success.

Please let us know how your fest went by filling out this brief survey: https://bit.ly/CZF2023. Thanks for helping us make future fests even better.

We know it’s been a hard time for those of us who are still Covid cautious, as U.S. society at large seems hellbent on ignoring the illness and death around us. We also know that our decision to make masks “strongly recommended” (instead of required) hurt some people in our community. We’re truly sorry for that. We know that decision reinforced valid feelings of isolation, sadness, and frustration. 

We thought long and hard about our decision not to announce that masking would be required. Because we recognize the very real risks of Covid, we think the worst thing we could do would be to promise a “masks required” environment and not have the appropriate capacity and structures in place to enforce that policy. As we announced earlier, we’ll have masks freely available to everyone and encourage mask wearing, and we’re looking into other mitigation strategies like renting air filters. But the truth is, we don’t believe we can make Plumbers Hall a safe space for immunocompromised people.

That’s part of why we likely won’t be hosting CZF at Plumbers Hall after 2023, although we’ve enjoyed working with them and hosting events in that beautiful space. We were contractually obligated to host CZF 2023 at Plumbers Hall, or we would lose our deposit of thousands of dollars. But in the past few years, we’ve been rethinking what CZF will look like in the future, and we’ve started to talk about planning smaller, more frequent, more focused events taking the place of a once-a-year Fest. With smaller events in smaller spaces, it would be much more likely that we can institute a “masks required” policy, or host events outside or in well-ventilated spaces.

If you’d be interested in helping build this new vision of CZF, consider joining us as a volunteer. We know this statement won’t make everyone happy (we miss feeling safe at big fests too!), but we think it’s the best way to plan for a Chicago Zine Fest that is inclusive of everyone in our community and remains sustainable long into the future. 

We’re happy for your feedback; please email us at [email protected] with your thoughts.

We’re thrilled to welcome everyone back to Chicago Zine Fest on Saturday May 20, 2023! We’ll be returning to Plumbers Hall in the West Loop (1350 W Washington Blvd) for our Exhibition Day. We’re also planning an online event on the evening of Friday May 19—stay tuned for more info.

If you were accepted to table at CZF 2020, we’ve reserved a spot for you at CZF 2023. Check your email for the link to the form to let us know if you’ll be joining us on May 20th.

We know COVID’s not over—we’ll be working to provide a safer environment for volunteers, exhibitors, and attendees. Masks will be available and strongly recommended for everyone at the event. We’ll also be limiting the number of shared tables to provide more space between exhibitors. We hope you’re as excited as we are about shifting back to providing both in-person and online events!

Sincerely,
the CZF 2023 Team
—Alex, Elliott, Emily, and Violet