Reaction To Taste of Joliet's Demise: Joliet Patch Readers Offer These Remarks To Stunning News

JOLIET, IL — The third week of June —back in 2024 — marked one of the greatest weekends in the history of Taste of Joliet. Goo Goo Dolls packed 25,000 people into Memorial Stadium and Friday night's momentum spilled into Saturday when Lady A drew another 20,000 country music fans. Sunday's Hispanic music day had its own attendance record, thanks to 3-time Grammy nominee Los Huracanes del Norte as the event's major headliner.

Then came along the 2025 Taste of Joliet and things took a step backwards. Billy Corgan — and his Machines of God summer touring band — was booked for $275,000 as the main headliner — minus his real band from Smashing Pumpkins including Joliet drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Although Corgan put on a spectacular concert, the bleachers on both sides of Memorial Stadium were mostly empty, unlike the previous year's Goo Goo Dolls concert.

The Joliet Park District, rather than spend close to $1 million in trying to book another three days of music concerts for next year's entertainment, has chosen to pull the plug on the Taste of Joliet. It's over. It's history. It's gone for good.

Joliet's Park District is giving itself a vacation. It will not put on any summer festival in the city of Joliet for 2026.

Wednesday's announcement indicated that a new event would be unveiled for 2027, but where that event will take place and when that will take place, won't be determined for a long, long time.

As of 7 p.m., a total of 174 readers had commented on the Joliet Patch Facebook page with their reaction to the Taste of Joliet's demise.

Here's a sampling of what Joliet Patch's readers had to say:

Kathleen: "This goes back more than 2 decades, more like 4 decades. The Taste of Joliet was held in downtown Joliet 1985. No big names, no entry fee that I can remember. Just food, vendors, a few bands and people. They were a lot of fun. Perhaps continue holding it at Inwood, but hire local bands, take that entry fee down to $5 and make it affordable and simple for residents."

Melendy: "Why not do the taste like all other cities do? With the new downtown square hold music there however close Cass Street and have restaurants that are truly JOLIET line the streets like the old days. Jitters, Juliet, Cut, Chicago Street and so on ... bring restaurants from the west and east side too. Make it a TRUE Taste of Joliet in Joliet."

Sue Ellen: "It's called The Taste of Joliet but yet every year it gets less and less restaurants from Joliet to participate. They have an abundance of horrible Carnival Food. Is it because they charge too much for the restaurants in Joliet to participate? I stopped going years ago and the only reason why I would go was maybe there was a performer that I wanted to listen to, but I would make sure I had food before I left my house."

Angie: "I went Friday night and the next day was asked by at least a dozen people if Billy Corgan did any Smashing Pumpkin's songs. They were almost all Smashing Pumpkin's songs. I think if it had been advertised as Smashing Pumpkin's or just Billy Corgan more people would have come. At least that was the response I got."

Marla: "Sad. I enjoyed every year. I didn't go rock night because I didn't like the singer. Had pit tickets for country night but due to the extreme heat this year I ate the ticket. Didn't want heat stroke. I wouldn't cancel. Maybe make it only Friday and Saturday night starting around 5 p.m. Have local bands open up like 7th Heaven, or hairbanger bangers on rock night, and Hillbilly Rockstarz for country night. If country night is more successful, then 2 nights of country artist."

Annette: "The heat did not help but I hate to see it cancelled. How about changing the date, making some changes."

Tom: "We usually go every year going to be disappointing not to go this year but I guess we'll find something else to do I always thought they should have it at the Jackhammer stadium or Slammer stadium whatever they're calling it now seems like it would make more sense."

Bryan: "The music part is great, but each year the food is less and less local and far more expensive than I can afford with my family."

Matthew: "Music acts never appealed to me and spending more on talent is oft not the solution. We were one crappy weather weekend away from financial disaster. Nice run though."

Michael: "Good run, some great music. It’s probably a money loser overall though, switch it up."

Tammy: "First it's too expensive, you're going to charge somebody $20 to just walk through the gate, and then everything else inside of their costs money. Secondly you need to move the weekend of the event because that weekend every year is either so hot you can't go outside or we have really bad damaging storms."

Larry: "They have no money left, they pay the city employees twice as much as their worth, I don't think twice about it."

Roger: "Music was always great... food just average. Will be missed. Hope they do something new but don't change the music."

Donald: "Oh, the event didn't do well? I am shocked. I mean - it would have been $75 for our family of 3 to even walk into the gate just to get the privilege of paying $30 or whatever it was for a carnival wristband for our kiddo, and then to pay inflated food prices from food vendors that mostly are not in Joliet — at the "Taste of Joliet."

Noah: "It's the park district's punishment to the community for not showing up last year. Shame on us!"

Gabrielle: "It's not just Joliet....Naperville got rid of their widely popular Ribfest several years ago. It, too, got too big for its britches... starting out as a food fest and then turning into a music festival. Same happened with the Taste of Chicago. Everything has its time and place."

Tom: "The city is working on consolidating everything to be under 100% city control to justify the new events positions they've created. Can't have the park district running events outside of full city control anymore. The same transfer of control to the city just happened at Bicentennial Park. Will it work? Well, it can't be much worse than how things are currently run. So at best it's a wash."

Jason: "Billy killed the taste."