Looptopia

so nicole and i got here just a min after midnight. so we had to go get the bracelets so we could do the inside art for the night… only thing was THEY WERE ALL OUT!!! i mean come on chicago! they didnt have enough bracelets for everyone. all the outside stuff was closed. we were forced to wall around with all the stupid junior high kids who did nothing but smoke weed or talk about it. the cops were useless and did nothing to stop this from going on. the whole event was sad.

All it was was drunk 19yr olds screaming all over the place. So many people on the sidewalks you couldn’t move and not a whole lot of information given on where things were. When we finally found something of interest, it was so crowded it was pointless.
Extremely unorganized and overcrowded. It would be a whole different thing if some of the streets were blocked off to help with the overflow of the people.
Liked the idea but in reality it was just a mass of people who just wanted to be drunk outside in the loop all night.
This was of 2007’s looptopia, not this years. I did not even consider going near that mess again.

I felt like this was a whole lot of effort for not much in return. I think it was better organized than last year’s, from what I heard, but it had its problems — they ran out of after 10pm event wristbands very early on, I had a hard time tracking down someone who could give me a map/​schedule which I needed because the site had been down, etc. I realize that the point is to experience a lot of different things, but I felt like many of the events were very short, and I spent far more time walking around than ‘experiencing’ things. I really wanted this to be great, because the concept is fantastic, but I was just really let down.

If they do this next year they should call it Douchetopia.
Though I really wanted to play hide and seek at 5am. I just couldnt stomach the scene girls.

5 Stars for someone taking the idea and running with it! Fantastic!
Does it need a lot of improvement YES!
But keep in mind any large scale city hosted event takes time and years to get down pat. They are well on there way to making this an institution.
More outdoor events
More Food Vendors
Open up Millennium Park completely
Move it to later in May
I love this city!
Keep it up!

Well, two years into Looptopia and it’s still more potential than success. Full disclosure right up front, the company I work for is a member of the business association that runs Looptopia, Chicago Loop Alliance. The performances and events that I’ve been to have been good to great. Last night’s Arch Improv at the Chicago Architecture Foundation by Second City was funny and well managed. In the lobby a guy was building lego models — 8 ft+ tall — of Hancock, Sears, Trump and Marina City. Many of the negatives have been mentioned already — and sad to say a number of them remain from last year.
We stayed from afterwork until midnight, and my overall reaction is that it’s too spread out. At its current attendance my guess is it would be better if people were more concentrated. At the same time, the Cultural Center was again swamped this year. Also it was frustrating to hear that the website crashed — again — this year.
Here’s hoping that it continues and it continues to improve.

You’ve got to be kidding me Looptopia. Seriously, how did you not learn from last year when your website crashed the day of the event? This is the only day people actually go to the web site! This means that there will most definitely be a very heavy demand on that day as people are trying to get information and download the pdf’s you have on there. This is going to use a lot of bandwidth, how do you not plan for that this year? That’s just terrible, terrible planning.
I came home from work and opened up my laptop because I wanted to look into a few events before jumping on the L and heading down to the loop. I can’t get information now because the site is down. I can understand this the first year of your existance, but really, you should have learned.
Information from the WHOIS search result on the domain allows me to place my blame in two places right now:
1. The guy listed as the technical contact for the CLA:
Technical Contact:
Ditchfield, Brian
Chicago Loop Alliance
27 E Monroe, suite 900A
Chicago, Illinois 60 603
United States
3 127 829 160
2. The company who is hosting the website and whose servers crashed: Adaptive Easel

This is a year late, and I’m only writing this b/​c I see the Looptopia advertising EVERYWHERE. So infuriating that they’re actually trying to do this again. Great idea in theory, just horrible in execution. None of the restaurants near by were accommodating to the large masses. The shows were hard to see. And it was crowded everywhere. Maybe they should refrain from trying to advertise to the masses, and let the festival grow on its own from year to year.

I went to this fest, and really wanted to love it. The idea — «all night party in the city» — who WOULDN’T love that?
But the execution. .. It seemed disorganized. AND they need to serve more drinks.
Let’s hope they try it again, and the city gets it’s stuff together a bit more.

Sorry for this late review, but I wrote up much of this before I knew about Unilocal.I am posting it with additional insights I have gained by talking to other Looptopia critics.
Like other reviewers, I give it 1 star for horrible execution, but 2 stars for trying to do a Nuit Blanche for Chicago. Hopefully the people who planned this are reading these amazingly detailed reviews of the disaster.
Rather than go into my own sucky experience I will list what I think are the main areas where Loop Alliance needs to focus improvement:
I guess my key points of improvement for the future would be —
— Metra Rail: run extra trains!
— call it White Night, damn straight
— good opportunity for impromptu street performance and fun, now that
we see how it works — move events outdoors, minimize indoor activities. Alliance: put more money and effort into street activities and steer away from use of cultural center and other buildings where access would be limited.
— some kind of lottery for limited attendance indoor events?
— don’t shut down Millennium Park, at any point during the white night; suspend the damn curfew
— more even distribution of porta potties
— more outdoor food vendors, all night
— move the event to a warmer time of year?
— more even distribution of events over the night — not so much
clustered around 5 pm. when people are just getting off work.
Back on May 12^th, before I even knew there was a Unilocal,I wrote the following more detailed notes on a Burning Man list that I think are still relevant:
The first odd glitch was that the official website

appeared to be down all day — every time I tried to bring that up, I
got «Service Unavailable». Same with the Chicago Loop Alliance
website. Servers overwhelmed no doubt.
Another thing I noticed before we even got to the Loop — Metra was
not running a special schedule for Looptopia. Those of us who depend on the train to get to the Loop, had to drive instead, unless you had no intention of possibly leaving between 1 AM and 5 AM.
We had a great time just hanging out with friends so that was good.
But we got to see very little of the Looptopia events. The video
installation at Daley Plaza was well served by the projection onto
Block 37. That was cool. The Redmoon events were accessible and
beautiful. But the indoor events seemed a disaster. Most of the main
activity sites such as the Cultural Center and Chicago Theater were
served by long, unmoving lines that seemed to just keep people out on the sidewalk waiting to get in, with no clear assurance that they
ever would. We actually did press through the mob to get into the
Chicago Theater and once inside had a good time. But all you had to
do was look across the lobby at the desperate faces of the many still
waiting on the sidewalk, to know that there was something wrong here.
Access to Millennium Park was nearly nonexistent after 1 AM.
Lavatories except for the bank of portapotties in Daley Plaza all
seemed shut down by that time. The streets were ruled so much by
drunken college students, I thought it was Fort Lauderdale on spring
break. Of course they were drunk! Access to events was so tightly
controlled that for most people, all that was left was drunken street
mayhem. The outdoor food vending also appeared to dry up around
midnight. The few places that existed to get coffee or tea were mobbed.
MFChicago at Sullivan dock was cool but pretty frigging packed.
Didn’t stay there long.
I had such hopes for this event. The organizers’ fear of letting
people into buildings really seemed to kill the event.

I’m not going to be as long as I could be. First off, Chicago is on par with many of the «great» cities around the world. I’m a big fan, and have always been. But there are times when I think Chicago isn’t living up to my expectations. Looptopia was one of those times.
While the idea was a good one, the execution of it was poor.
Streets should probably been closed off to cars so pedestrians had complete control of the loop (though I appreciated how easy it was to hail a taxi).
Promotion of the event failed to educate the public on what to expect. Parents brought children, teens were roving about unsupervised, and most everyone was frustrated after being turned away from one or more event.
Often the descriptions of events didn’t provide enough details to entice and inform.
Oh, and we can’t forget how events were grouped so closely in the first half of the evening, so as to leave the second half bare for those all-​nighters that actually understood the spirit of the event.
There’s hope for next year, if the ambition for next year hasn’t already been squashed by the critical reviews. I’m looking forward to it.

An extra star for how cool it could be one day and the massive-​ness of the undertaking…
But they scheduled all the good stuff way too early. Come on, Ponys at like 8 o’clock, WTF? I barely got down there to meet my friends as the show ended and then migrate around in crowds in search of a beer or two. Ok, the cool fall weather didn’t help.
Anyway, here’re are a couple ideas the organizers should put on their todo list for next year:
Please, next time– schedule a good rocking band for like midnight or 2 AM in the loop. Make it worthwhile to show up even late and stretch the crowding out a bit so everybody doesn’t have to get there all at once like this time. I would totally like to make an event ‘part’ of a night on the town. By trying to make it everyone’s entire night on the town, the crowding flat out makes it suck. I’d love to be able to view it as a collection of events spread over the night and people just show up for one or two.
Maybe everybody could get generic tickets or something, limit 2per that actually get you into one of the events. That way people would pick and choose their favorites, rather than running all over the place trying to see them all and crowding everybody out?
They need to install a really loud sound system too– every time the wind blew the treble would fade out.
And how about a giant beer tent? Nobody anywhere throws a big party without a beer tent, this should be no different. Get the permits, get the mayor on board, do whatever, but get us some beer dammit!
Spread out some events better– make Millennium park full of stuff for office workers, Daley center full of stuff for the artsy crowd, another spot with stuff for highly cultured people, etc. Yeah, I know that’s probably putting things more black and white than reality, but really, if everybody didn’t have to run all over the place to see the stuff they liked, they’d see more, walk less and enjoy it better!
How about running some secret, last minute events and not putting them on the map/​handout!?! Make it like a cultural event treasure hunt. Have a performance of some sort in a building lobby here or there that’s unannounced– open the doors 15 minutes before show, let in 30 passers by and stop admittance? That’d be cool too, but I suppose they’d have to keep show time and location a secret from the performers so the place doesn’t get loaded with insiders/​friends.
Anyway, I hope the organizers get creative with ideas for improving the experience of those of us who drag our asses down there. They did a great job getting acts/​performances together that are worth trying to get to, they just need to work on making that less of a hassle. And more beer too.
.

First off, let’s talk about the stupid name for this event? Looptopia? That’s like when the lunch ladies call Friday «Pizzapalooza». Why couldn’t they have just called it White Night like every other city does???
I admit that I was enticed by the idea of seeing the Ponys and Mucca Puzza play for free at Daley Plaza, which was sort of the original reason why my friends and I decided to venture down for Looptopia – but the whole thing started so early that by the time we finally got down to the loop on the slow-​moving Blue line, we were only able to catch the tail end of the very last marching band song. We decided to check out the Sullivan Dock dance party behind the old Carson Pirie Scott in hopes that maybe we’d at least find some free drinks, but really it was just a bunch of lame kids and suburban parents piled elbow to elbow in a cramped alley while house music blared and random shit projected onto brick walls above our heads. Next.
We decided to continue our search for free (or at least cheap?) drinks at the Macy’s dance party «Club Looptopia» up on the 7^th floor of the building and were once again sorely disappointed when we found a massive line of dorks waiting behind velvet ropes for the opportunity to drink not-​free beers in the crowded food court area (???), while once again house music blared in the background. Lucky for us they had about 3 people trying to control a crowd of 500 and it was easy to worm our way around barriers and into the dance party. We double-​fisted a couple of the luck-​warm (albeit cheap) beers, found a couple of abandoned unopened ones on the ground, and managed to cash in on the same receipt twice, so the 11 o’clock closing hour found the 4 of us with 12 opened beers. We shared some away to break-​dancing strangers, scrounged around on the ground for bottle caps and re-​capped a few, and slammed the rest.
We left with a few bottles badly stashed (in back pockets and small purses) and decided to check out the Art Institute garden which according to the schedule was going to be «a veritable Garden of Eden» with a fruit installation provided by Whole Foods (which to us sounded like free food hanging from trees). What it really meant was a poorly-​lit rectangle of mostly honeydew melons on the ground surrounded by security guards. Ouch. We sat on a dark ledge and drank our remaining beers before heading out in search of a badly needed OPEN public washroom. The Art Institute was now closed, Subway had a bathroom line out the door, and area hotels had gotten clever and most entrances were locked and/​or guarded by security guards demanding to see keys. Luckily we ran into some friends of some friends who were on their way to a nearby apartment party and invited us up. We got to pee, eat the dregs of the tortilla chips, and slam a Tecate before back out into the streets with the entire party in tow in search of any of the few remaining events that continued on past 11 pm.
We thought the Cultural Center tour might be okay, and started to make our way there down Michigan Avenue when we were stopped by a row of police officers who informed us that «the block was closed» and we «couldn’t be there right now.» One block over and we were told the same thing about Wabash. We continued north towards the Cultural Center down alleys until we made it to the south side of the building where we were again met with a police blockade who told us «these entrances aren’t open». We tried to walk around to the other side, but were told that the Michigan Avenue sidewalk was also «closed» on this particular block. They also had officers blocking off the alley AND Wabash. We asked the officers how we were supposed to get into the building and they kept responding with things like «you can’t be here right now.» What???
We ended up back at the apartment we had come from stopping at a 7 – 11 along the way for some more beer and chips, but c’mon! What’s the point of having an «ALL NIGHT FESTIVAL» when all of the events end at 11 and police are shutting down entire blocks of the city? Where did they expect people to go until 6 AM? Or do? The whole thing was such a poorly planned mess, that I honestly can’t even BEGIN to imagine what a hellacious experience the Olympics might be if they were actually held in Chicago. And for REAL, what was up with all of the house music???
Overall, I had a kind of fun night, but it was mostly because of the good company and the flask in my back pocket.

I have to pretty much agree w/​everyone here. Wonderful fantastic concept! Major points off for follow-​thru and planning.
I went after 11 and I too think things seems to wind down — went to the Cultural Center & the long line that went on forever. it seemed like this was how to «deal» with the crowds… just to let us wallow in a line. forever. + points to the great chicagoans who made this a fun time being nice & the people watching…
so, by the time the cultural center let anyone in, everything was full. The only option we could do was sit & listen to the indian music beautifully pouring out of what was probably a great show or play chess. The 4:30 flashligh tour seemed cool — except the man w/​the walkie talkie said we needed to preregister at some place on randolph? What? Am I blind & missed this or was he just fed up with too many people or something? boo. I really wanted to love this b/​c of the great concept.
— For next year — maybe consider posting space limits for the events. this way we can consider the ratio of how many people in line to space amount.
I really wanted to love this… i’ve heard better things from people who attended earlier in the night…

I was all set to stay out all night and take in the awesomeness of Looptopia but there was no awesome to be found. After 1:00am the schedule looked a little sparse but I tried to get into the Cultural Center to see what was going on. Something had to be going on right? There’s a huge line! The huge line was because the police weren’t letting anyone in. There was no all night fun to be found. It should have been called «the festival that shuts down at midnight then reopens at 5am.»
C– for effort, Chicago. I would have even let you cheat off another city’s paper, at least they know what they’re doing.

I will forever refer to this event last Friday as Loser-​topia. I wanted it to be something GREAT, something that our beautiful city would have been proud of. However, it was a spectacle of hoards of people walking around downtown, leaving empty liquor bottles, littler, and the CPD making several arrests. I was hoping to listen to some jazz, Indian music, a laptop musican, and tour the Chicago Cultural Center with flashlights at 4:30 in the morning. I did none, but sure did try my best, but when lines are a quarter mile long, it is probably safe to say that you are not getting in. More events in bigger venues would be more ideal.
I did see a band that was mediocre, took in various art instillations, had some drinks, ran into a few people I know, and snapped some nice pictures. Danced to some house music, but mannn o man was it packed.

I got down to Looptopia about 9:00 and was on my way home at 11:00, I had not planned on staying out all night but thought I would be there longer than that. First stop was Macy’s and when we saw that line, we walked back out. Next was over to The Goodman Theatre which was okay but it was a traveling show and with so many people, we didn’t get to see each part. When we walked out, the line was around the block. We wanted to see the Broadway in Chicago show but had time to waste so we went to the Chicago Historical Society, walked around there for a bit, couldn’t get up the stairs (people were being let in a few at a time) we then headed back to see B’way in Chicago only to find this line around the block 20 mins before it was going to start so we left. There were other things I wanted to see but was planning my night around the B’way show that I didn’t see more of the whole event.
I liked the idea of Looptopia but also agree that it was not planned very good. It definitely wasn’t what I thought it would be. I think if they closed the streets down (or at least State St since it was at the heart of it all) it might have gone smoother. The sidewalks reminded me of December when the tree is lit and people are stopped looked at the windows at Macy’s/Field’s. Had people been able to walk freely in the street, it would have lightened up on the congestion. Also, maybe do it in the beginning of June instead so there is a better chance of the weather being better. The idea of wandering around the loop late at night on a warm summer night sounds more enjoyable than wandering around the loop bundled up against the elements.
I can say I was at the first all night party in the US but that’s about it, if they do it again, maybe they’ll make some changes.

I was so disappointed with Looptopia! The idea of a dusk ’till dawn cultural festival is great! The planning, organization, and execution of Looptopia was not.
The crowds were too big for the venues and performances that they planned. There was too much going on and I missed almost all of the things that I wanted to see, because the lines were too long and I couldn’t get in. Macy’s was a joke! I couldn’t even figure out where the line ended… and if I did get in line the «club» looked pretty lame. Everyone was standing around and they all looked bored. The same thing at the rave. Aren’t people supposed to dance at raves? At least jump around a little?
One thing that infuriated me was going to see the Broadway in Chicago cabaret. It was being held in the alley behind the Oriental (Couch Place), but they had blocked off the entrances to the alley. No problem. I was there 45 minutes before the show, so I was in position to get a great view. After waiting for about 10 or 15 minutes, one of the «security guards» informed us that we were waiting at the back of the alley and they weren’t going to let people in from there. What? I didn’t know that alleys had fronts and backs?
I think that the planners of Looptopia did not expect as many people to come out. C’mon, it’s Chicago. The first chance we get to go to a festival, we’re gonna go! The surrounding businesses should have also tried to stay open later. Garrett’s could have sold out of popcorn!
On the positive side, I’m giving an extra star for the performances that I saw and really enjoyed. I tried to check out the things that I wouldn’t ordinarily go to. The Weird Sisters were GREAT!!! I’ve become a Weird Sister groupie! The Redmoon performances on State Street (the woman with the potatoes) was eerie and creepy at first, but then it turned hypnotic and oddly interesting. The powerful concentration and acting skills that this woman had blew my mind.

Lametopia. A completely ill-​conceived event. And what lasted beyond midnight I would like to know?

Ah, Looptopia, how I wanted to love you. Instead, you were so overadvertised and underorganized that you turned my love to ashes.
In theory, this was a great idea: an all-​night party in the Loop, featuring local artists and musicians and performers. A neighborhood festival, but on a grand scale. Sounds great.
Then cold reality intervened. And by cold reality, I mean the frigid 40 degree May weather, with wind gusts of 40 miles an hour. Perhaps I exaggerate, but just a little.
I would not have noticed the cold weather, if the festival had been a bit warmer. As Amy says in her review, The indoor venues were a mess. The Goodman was staging some of Susan Lori Parks’ «365 Days 365 Plays» «in spaces not traditionally used for performance at the Goodman.» All well and good. But that meant they could only let in 150 people at a time. With no advance warning. So when we showed up, we were told the long line people waiting to get in were the last 150. Thank goodness we asked, because no one from the Goodman was at the end of the line, letting people know. The same thing happened at Couch Place, behind the Oriental Theater. We lined up to get in, only to find out — completely accidentally — that the line was actually at the other end of Couch Place, and that the event was sold out. (Well, it was free, but they weren’t letting any more people in.) This was half an hour before the event was to start.
The other problem was that the events were really spread out, with long blocks of empty space between them. Many of the businesses in the Loop didn’t even stay open late. As a result, instead of a big celebration, you had a bunch of people tromping from one venue to another. LaSalle Bank had performers in their windows, but the bank was far enough away from any other venue that it was kind of pointless. It would have made more sense to have more small performances going on between the larger venues, to create some sort of cohesion.
The outside performance spaces were much more successful. The plaza at Chase Tower was a great performance space, and had some great performances (Soirée Dada, Weird Sisters). Daley Plaza was overcrowded, but it was able to handle the crowds. Redmoon filled in some of the public areas with fun performance installations, and I would have like to have seen more of that sort of thing. Two of Redmoon’s performance spaces were directly adjacent to Chase, which kind of defeated the purpose. Though I loved what they were doing, I would have liked to have seen them «fill in the gaps» between other performance spaces.
I still think this is a great idea, and I hope the Loop Alliance learns from their mistakes and does a better job next year. I hope Loop businesses hear about the huge crowds, and stay open late next year. I hope there’s some place to get food and drink without having to go into a restaurant! I hope it’s warmer next time. This idea can work, and hopefully over the next few years, we’ll see how.