Taste Of Chicago Loses $169,404 After Rain Cancels Fifth Day
(STMW) -- Taste of Chicago lost $169,404 — one year after turning a $272,000 profit — thanks to the city's decision to pull the plug on one of the five days to avoid electrical problems in food preparation areas after heavy rains, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
Even with an abbreviated, four-day run, Chicago's premier lakefront festival attracted 1.1 million people and generated $5.46 million in overall revenue and $106 million in "total business activity," according to City Hall.
But, the deluge that prompted the city to cancel, what is traditionally the Taste's "highest-earning day" forced the event back in the red one year after the Emanuel administration's decision to re-imagine the event stopped the bleeding.
Even with the modest losses, Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner Michelle Boone argued that an event that now features food trucks on Butler Field has turned the corner and is here to stay.
"With a renewed focus on the visitor experience, robust programming and diverse culinary offerings that included 21 new restaurants and food trucks, the new Taste of Chicago model is proving successful as tourist draw for the city and a benefit to business activity," Boone was quoted as saying in a press release.
"The revamped Taste of Chicago continues to attract visitors from all over the world to sample our diverse culinary offerings, enjoy top national music acts and experience our beautiful lakefront."
Days after the rain-out that denied vendors a fifth day of revenue, Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended his decision to play it safe and pull the plug.
The mayor said then that he had tickets for a planned performance by hometown favorite Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and was bummed out that the concert was washed out.
But, when the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and the Department of Police, Fire and Cultural Affairs all agree that shutting down for one of only two weekend days was the right thing to do to guarantee "public safety," the mayor said he was not about to overrule them.
"Obviously, it's a disappointment, but it's better to be safe than sorry," the mayor said then.
"There were some people who talked about, three years, ago, shutting the Taste completely down. I rejected that. I said let's re-engineer it. Let's re-imagine it. We now have pop-up restaurants, specialty chefs, food trucks, music. Last year, Taste of Chicago for the first time made money and the city had about $100 million of economic impact and job creation. …We shut it for a day for safety. But for the days it was open, it was extremely successful for the businesses, for the families that participated and for the city of Chicago."
Some Taste vendors were so incensed by the Saturday closing, particularly after the storm passed by afternoon, they considered asking City Hall to reimburse them for lost revenue. But, City Hall publicly rejected those claims, saying participating restaurants knew they were taking a gamble on the weather.
Five years ago, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley's plan to privatize the Taste fell flat on its face. At his insistence, City Hall rejected a lone bidder's proposal to charge a $10 admission fee to the Taste and kept the admission free.
To reverse $7 million in festival losses over the prior three years — and absorb a $2 million cut in Daley's final budget — the city handed the Taste off to the Park District and folded the city's four least-popular music festivals into the Taste. The experiment was a bust.
Determined to stop the flow of red ink, Emanuel cut the Taste — from ten days to five — and bumped it to mid-July from its prime position around July 4th.
The number of restaurants was reduced. So-called "pop-up" restaurants that had never before participated were allowed to get in on the Taste for just one day without paying the $3,000 application fee, in exchange for 20 percent of their revenues. Five-day participants pay the fee and share 18 percent of their revenues with the city.
Celebrity chefs prepared three-course, sit-down meals for $40-a-person.
For the first time, Taste patrons were asked to pay $25 each for 3,000 reserved concert seats at Petrillo.
To skeptics, it looked like the new mayor was preparing to wash his hands of an event that had become a drain on taxpayers and suffered security problems.
Those fears turned out to be unfounded.
Taste of Chicago turned a profit in 2013 for the first time in six years — thanks to a recipe that included perfect weather and a popular music line-up.
One year after losing $1.3 million, Taste made $272,000 profit. That was a nearly $1.6 million turn-around in just one year for a lakefront showcase that, some feared, was headed for the scrap heap.
This year, concert seats closest to the Petrillo stage cost $50. Seats furthest away cost less than $25. The average cost-per-concert ticket will not exceed $25. There was a fee for 3,000 lawn seats, but 34,000 remained free.
The surcharge on food tickets — frozen since 2008 — increased from $2 to $2.50 for a strip of 12 food tickets.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
