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Bear Digest

Bears Slate 10 Practices Open to the General Public at Halas Hall

Access to Bears training camp practices for fans will be about the same as in past years at Halas Hall but nothing like in their days at Bourbonnais.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams gets set to warm up at training camp at Halas Hall in 2025.
Caleb Williams gets set to warm up at training camp at Halas Hall in 2025. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears



The Bears will have 10 practices open to the general public at training camp, with free tickets distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis July 8 at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster.

The full squad reports for camp July 28 and rookies July 25. The first practice open to the public is July 31 while the first practice at training camp for the full roster is July 29.

Available practices for the general public will be July 31, Aug. 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 18 and 25, but the Bears have not issued times for those practices at this point. It makes planning for fans a bit difficult until this is released.

Their lone home preseason game is Aug. 15 against the Browns at noon, and there will be two joint road practices held Aug. 20 at Cincinnati and Aug. 27 at Tennessee prior to Saturday preseason games.

The Bears designated some of the practice as special days. Aug. 1 is kids day, Aug. 8 celebrates women and girls in sports and Aug. 9 is Vamos Bears Day.

The schedule released by the Bears does not include a day of practice at Soldier Field for family fest as they had done in the past. Perhaps it's not surprising considering how they plan to leave Soldier Field permanently once they get the stadium deal hammered out in Indiana or possibly the suburbs.

There are two other dates when they'll allow fans to view practice this training camp but those are through invite only for select groups.

Halas Hall camp just not the same fun for fans

The entire training camp experience is a good one for families with or without a family day. They have autograph sessions, the mascot and at the entrance there are souvenir stands of various types for fans.

Nevertheless, training camp has always been a hollow situation since the team returned from Bourbonnais to hold practices at Halas Hall from the start of the pandemic in 2020. Seating for practices is very limited, as are access points for fan autographs. They're fortunate to get 1,500 fans to a practice.

There is no room for parking at Halas Hall for practices. Fans must park at Hawthorn off Townline Road in Vernon Hills. Then shuttle buses take fans to Halas Hall. Fans need to present their training camp tickets to ride the shuttle.

In their time at Bourbonnais, from 2002-2019, the Bears would frequently have close to 10,000 or more fans show up in a day for practices. They had similarly large crowds at Platteville, Wis. from 1984-2001.

The 10 free sessions for the general public this year does constitute an increase for fans by one practice over last year. The family fest practice at Halas Hall was not free.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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