Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday proclaimed his shrunken and revamped Taste of Chicago a success and said he plans to do more of the same next year.
By cutting the Taste in half, bumping it to mid-July and charging for concert seats at the Petrillo bandshell, Emanuel led some people to fear he was trying to kill the premier summer festival that had become a drain on Chicago taxpayers.
Those fears turned out to be unfounded.
Overall, attendance was 1.2 million or an average of 240,000 for each of the five days.
That’s up 5,000-a-day from last year’s draw of 2.35 million over five days, which was down 11 percent from 2010 and 37.5 percent from the event’s 2006 and 2007 heyday.
Restaurant revenues for the 2012 Taste were not yet known.
Last year, the 59 participating restaurants made $4.9 million — 20 percent less than the year before.
We're sure they'll release those numbers in a few weeks when it won't really matter and no one is paying attention.