Summertime 2021 is a distant mirage in Chicago, but if you’re making warm weather plans to help you get through the winter, don’t put Taste of Chicago or the Air and Water Show in your calendar.
With the COVID-19 pandemic expected to continue making large public gatherings dangerous for the foreseeable future, the city has not budgeted next year to run either of the big summer events that draw huge crowds to the lakefront.
Special Events Commissioner Mark Kelly told aldermen during his annual budget hearing Thursday that Taste and the Air Show haven’t been canceled yet. But the $9 million or so it takes to run them hasn’t been included in his department’s spending plan.
Taste and the Air Show were both canceled this year, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded to the coronavirus by clearing the docket of nearly all the major events in Chicago’s downtown and Grant Park.
Taste usually takes place for a week in mid-July in Grant Park, and the Air Show takes over the lakefront for a weekend in mid-August.
Kelly’s department counts on money coming in through hotel taxes and other tourist-driven sources to pay for its budget. With tourism way down, only a little more than half the $40 million he was counting on for 2020 has come in, Kelly said.
The department’s 2021 budget will therefore go down by nearly half, to $25 million.
Events such as the Taste end up being a net financial gain for the city during normal years, Kelly said, because of all the people who rent hotel rooms and spend money at restaurants and other businesses while they’re in town.
There is funding for the city’s beloved jumping jack program, through which block parties around the city can apply to get a bounce house to set up for the day. It remains to be seen whether block parties are allowed at any time in 2021, after the city canceled the program for this year because of the pandemic.
The city plans to go ahead with “re-imagined festivals” in 2021, and to host house and gospel music, blues and jazz concerts in Millennium Park, according to Special Events spokesman Jamey Lundblad. There is funding in the budget for those types of events, Lundblad said.
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