Taste Attendence Down
Of course, no one is really sure where or how they get these numbers. But the media dutifully reports it as fact:
- The final attendance numbers for this year's Taste of Chicago showed a slight dropoff, but city organizers said they were still pleased with the size of hungry crowds that braved rainy weather and economic uncertainty.
About 3.35 million people came to Grant Park over the fest's 10 days, down from about 3.5 million visitors last year, the Mayor's Office of Special Events spokeswoman Cindy Gatziolis said Sunday, the Taste's last day.
We're supposed to believe some payrollers stood at all the entry points with those clickers and tallied up everyone coming in? At what, ten different entry points? Yeah, OK. Got it.
Labels: events
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
36 Comments:
People are Wizeing up to the Chicago-Media and City Hall Bullshit...Next years attendance will be even lower.
So that's .15 million people that were smart enough not to come to the taste this year.
If this keeps up we'll have to rename it the "Taste of the Ghetto"
ABC news interviewed a vendor at the taste, he said the police did a great job.
nice .....so where's our contract ?
She further added that the people that came didn't spend that much money. Time to charge an entrance fee to get rid of non-spenders.
Did they count the guy with the sawed off shotgun?
And just think how much money the City could have made if they would have charged even $1 to enter. But wait, then they would have true numbers.
i know you want to blame it all on the shootings last year but i would bet the economy is the reason for the lower attendance
If they charged even 2 bucks a head to get in they'd be sitting on $6 mil.
The predators won't pay a dollar, that would cut down on 80% of the wandering miscreants that have invaded that mistake on the Lake, they have the unmitigated gall to call a Festival.
Attendance figures will be "amended" by the city for the afternoon news cycle
Another record year!!
Count on it
i know you want to blame it all on the shootings last year but i would bet the economy is the reason for the lower attendance
7/06/2009 06:40:00 AM
OR PERHAPS A COMBINATION OF BOTH NOSTRADAMUS?
They should hold the taste in Washington "I mean Olympic park" then the crime will fit the neighborhood and no one will care.
i know you want to blame it all on the shootings last year but i would bet the economy is the reason for the lower attendance
7/06/2009 06:40:00 AM
OK Mr. Mayor, whatever you say. How about one third of the vendors from last year not participating this year because of the thugs?
I want that job. I bet they make about $110,000.00 a year.
I heard ticket sales off by as much as 50%.
Take it from me I know how they do the attendance count, at least how they did it in the past. The head of Special Events or the person from Special Events that is the lead for the Taste goes to the Exempt in charge. She says what do you think of the crowd size. He says how are ticket sales this year/date/day compared with last year. If up they put their heads together ans day OK we had 100,000 on this date, so lets say 110000. So if they're reporting a drop the ticket revenues must be significantly down, or there was extremely bad weather on a particular day compared to last year.
About 3.35 million people came to Grant Park over the fest's 10 days, down from about 3.5 million visitors last year, the Mayor's Office of Special Events spokeswoman Cindy Gatziolis said Sunday, the Taste's last day.
--They show up to start shit, not to spend $ on food !
Did they count the guy with the sawed off shotgun?
Was he eating corn on the cob?
Here is my experience this year.
Almost didn't find a parking spot to park but found one and had to walk about 3/4 of a mile.
Spread out the blanket on the lake front at around 8 pm, almost didn't find a spot for it, but some folks moved thiers up a little and told us to move ours into the spot.
Lotsa of families making a day of it, I estimate the crowd at around75% white, 20% Hispanic (Mexican) 5% other. The Mexican families had the best spreads which made me really hungry.
Spent $23 on hot dogs, brats, popcorn and water from the Lion's club tent. Brought a little cooler.
Talked to the people next to us about their kids and school and summer camp and their church.
One of the Dad's was pretty drunk, but he kept saying how it wasn't his turn to drive and then afterwards talked almost incoherently about the Star Spangled Banner rocket's red glare, and then his eyes welled up and he said:"I'm sure I'll find another job, America is great."
Talked and joked with two Natl Guard females about how Obama was going to make every military member wear bright orange traffic control vests.
The fireworks went on for about 30 minutes.
The people next to us gave my little girl a light stick, "that was for fishing, cost 10 bucks for a whole package of them at Walmart, and doesn't bend, but the kids don't seem to notice the difference".
The Police, County, volunteers, Explorers, and Guard got everyone on their way safely and orderly in a rather short amount of time.
I wasn't in Chicago. Fontana, Wi.
Last Year, the last year I will ever go to the Waste of Chicago. Drove to a El Stop, took the train, had to walk a mile.
Spent $90 on food, which was good, in small portions, with no place to sit and eat it and no place to clean up before and after.
Walked through crowds, after 4 pm the gangs and punks had their roving harrassment squads going through.
Couldn't see the fireworks because I had to hold up my kid, in fact I held her the whole day. Lost our blanket because it was too bulky to carry through the crowd, so we ditched it.
Had to walk a gauntlet to get back to the train. This was the worse part of the evening. I will not elaborate.
Got off the train and someone had broken out my window, popped the trunk and took a bag of smelly gym clothes and a cross wrench from the trunk, the only thing in the car.
The shootings really had nothing to do with it. The economy is in the tank. People stayed home and grilled. Just the other day on CNN they did a piece about how hot dog sales greatly out paced sales of other meats this summmer. Just like the great depression people are turning back the hot dogs.
To answer the other question the esitmation of attendance is based off ticket sales and those are caompared to last year. Also they do aireal pictures of the of the Taste. From the pictues they can give a rough estimate of how many people are in attendance.
I wouldn't take my kids down there if they were giving food away for free. Taste of the Ghetto has a nice ring to it...I like that.
my family will never go, the Taste is a fucking gangfest.
As we speak, Daley advisors are hard at work planning their NEW strategy to increase their 'take' from the Taste. Here's the plan so far:
Next years 'Taste' will be renamed the "Taste of Chicago, 2016" and will feature exhibitions from former Olympians...
Michael Jordan will compete in the "Slam Dunk Through a Hail Of Bullets" competition;
Michael Phelps will join other competitors for a "Smoke A Bong Of Pot" relay race where he can backstroke along the lakefront past various drug spots;
Carl Lewis will enter the "50 Meter
Dash from Gangsta Gunfire" sprint;
Shawn Johnson can 'Dance With The Stars' under the July 3rd Fireworks lit sky, (actually gunshot blasts, but as a non-Chicagoan, the little pixie won't know the difference!);
Jackie Joyner-Kirsee will race in the "1000 Meter Hurdles Over Shooting Victims" relay, where new gunshot victims will fall on the track after each lap;
Two unique winter Olympic exhibitions are planned, as well. One will feature Tonya Harding beating other contestants in their knees with a Triple Rear Axel (from a 1957 Cadillac);
The other will incorporate various knives, machetes, broadswords etc from Evidence and Recovered Property that will be fashioned into ice skates and used by Olympic gold medal speed skater Bonnie Blair to flee from bands of wilding gang bangers;
For a change, Daley and his staff may deserve some credit here. This exhibition will mostly utilize already existing 'resources', (privately owned weapons and ammunition, and local crime victims), that will require little public money. And, hey, when life gives you lemons, make Lemonade!
"We're supposed to believe some payrollers stood at all the entry points with those clickers and tallied up everyone coming in? At what, ten different entry points? Yeah, OK. Got it."
Payrollers, they all got laid off...and it certainly wasn't city management, work? whats that?
My family and I went to napervil;le ribfest great time, great food "clean" No animals roaming around, the best $10.00 we ever paid!
"Taste attendance down?"
Gee, I wonder why....
Couldn't be that 3/4's of the eateries are pizza places.
Or that they charge dinner prices for a snack.
Or that there is no where to sit and enjoy what you are eating.
Or that there is no place for the workers to wash their hands.
Or that there are armed thugs roaming about.
Just another ploy to stash all that cash skimmed from the top. Las Vegas casinos were notorious for this back in the day. Da Mare and his syndicate are multi-millionaires with no end in sight.
i know you want to blame it all on the shootings last year but i would bet the economy is the reason for the lower attendance
7/06/2009 06:40:00 AM
Oh. Please.
And just think how much money the City could have made if they would have charged even $1 to enter. But wait, then they would have true numbers.
7/06/2009 06:23:00 AM
You're a smart guy.
I bet MOSE blames the economy for the decline, but ask anybody I know and people have stopped going because the goons and the thuggery that take place have ruined everybody's time.
The only way you WOULDN'T realize that is if your head is in the sand. That's true for the media in this case.
I talked to one of the vendors last week who told me that his numbers were down from last years. A lot of people brought their own coolers and sat down and listened to the free entertainment. Attendance may be down but the numbers of people who bought food this year were down by an even larger percent.
Half in attendance were consumers. The other half were preditors. As the preditors made good on their victims, they would spend their booty on the Tatse.
See, it all works out in the end. Daley makes his money no matter what!
Actually, on July 04, I went to the Taste with my counter and registered every person in the Taste and along the lakefront.I will call the estimate of 1,000,000 people bullshit.By my personal and accurate account there was 250,123 people in attendance.
As for attendance, the city sells the food tickets that people redeem for food. So the city gets its cut right off the top.
The published reports that 10+ guns and a fully loaded shotgun were recovered won't help much. If that was what was seized, what was out there and got by?
The word is getting out to the people with money and that is stay away from the Waste. Too many blog reports and U-Tube vids getting the truth out. It is only a matter of time until some well-off suburbanite fatally catches a round.
I remember Summerfest at Navy Pier. That was great. Charged a not-insignificant admission and kept the SH's out.
I give the "Taste (Waste) of Shitcago about 3 more years to live before the city quietly folds it.
shitheads,gangs,thugs=job security bitches!escape from chicago starring kurt russell.
Chicago Fest was great. A closed venue with controlled access points. Concerts, the best video games (at that time), food, drink and fun. Then Jesse and his clan got pissed and boycotted the Fest. The last year of its existance it became known as Mayor Byrne's Honky Fest. I still have the T-shirt!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Take it from me I know how they do the attendance count, at least how they did it in the past. The head of Special Events or the person from Special Events that is the lead for the Taste goes to the Exempt in charge. She says what do you think of the crowd size. He says how are ticket sales this year/date/day compared with last year. If up they put their heads together ans day OK we had 100,000 on this date, so lets say 110000. So if they're reporting a drop the ticket revenues must be significantly down, or there was extremely bad weather on a particular day compared to last year.
7/06/2009 08:58:00 AM
*****
This poster is dead on, with one exception. The daily/final attendance numbers are established by MOSE staffers, after getting the total sales of the day/week and comparing them to numbers released in years past. The top police officer on the scene is then phoned and notified. The goal is ALWAYS "record-breaking attendance", so numbers must really be down this year.
Post a Comment
<< Home