Taste Chewing On Concert Fees

A proposal to charge admission to an annual food festival and corresponding concert series has left a bad taste in the mouth of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

City officials issued a call last month for private operators to submit proposals to run Taste of Chicago after reportedly losing millions on several lakefront festivals over the past few years.

In the end, the city received a sole bid from Celebrate Chicago LLC, a group composed of Jam Productions, AEG Live and the Illinois Restaurant Association.

Celebrate Chicago’s plan includes charging a $20 admission fee for night, weekend and holiday attendance, with $10 rebated to patrons in food and beverage tickets, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The group is also pushing $25 to $65 tickets for concerts with upgraded talent during Taste, with the $20 admission fee waived for concertgoers, the paper said.

But the 30-year-old Taste of Chicago has always featured free admission and concerts, and Daley apparently wants to keep it that way.

“I’m against that,” he told the Sun-Times, comparing Taste to Milwaukee’s annual Summerfest that charges for admission and concerts. “This is not the Taste of Milwaukee. This is the Taste of Chicago. It’s only a food festival.”

He added that he’d like to see the festival get back to its roots and feature local bands rather than big-name acts.

“We’re not into music. We’re not into anything else,” he said. “We got into tangents and the cost kept going up. We’re gonna get it back down and do the Taste of Chicago for food and that’s all.”

Celebrate Chicago said in a statement that the group is “sensitive to the importance of providing affordable public programming.”
“Our proposal contains many options, from free afternoons to ticketed events. We look forward to discussing the proposal with the review committee and are open to their recommendations.”

A selection committee is scheduled to examine the bid and provide recommendations for revision. Should the city fail to find a private operator for Taste, officials previously told the Sun-Times large cuts could be in the works for Chicago’s lakefront festivals.