Chicago Cancels All Summer Festivals Due To COVID-19

If it's a festival, a sporting event, or a parade--it's not going to be happening this year in Chicago thanks to the COVID-19 crisis.

Officially, the City of Chicago is cancelling "all permitted special events." Unofficially, if it's a gathering of more than 10 people, it's off-the-table for the summer of 2020. Here's a partial list of events that will have to wait until 2021:

• Chicago SummerDance
• Taste of Chicago
• Lollapalooza
• The Chicago Air and Water Show
• Chicago Jazz Festival
• The “majority of programming” at the Chicago Riverwalk, Chicago Cultural Center and Millennium Park
• Maxwell Street Market (through Labor Day)
• Jumping Jack Program

WGN TV News:

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said called the decision to cancel the events “heartbreaking” Tuesday, saying large-scale events like Lollapalooza are unlikely to take place until there is a vaccine for COVID-19.

“Given what we know about how this disease spreads, which is close intimate contact extended over 10 minutes, realistically we will not be able to have those kind of large gatherings for some time,” Lightfoot said. “Bringing 100,000 people en masse in close quarters… downtown in Grant park every single day, we might as well light ourselves on fire.”