Bracket Tournament Part 2: Which is the best Chicago event?

After a brief pause, mainly to recuperate from some harrowingly tight first round matches, we have returned ready to conclude our bracketed style tournament to decide exactly what is Chicago’s best and most influential special event.

First, a quick review of the “thrilling” first round action from a few days ago:

Air and Water Show defeated The Bud Billiken Parade, Millenium Park Concerts over Pride Parade, Lollapalooza over Wrigley Field Cubs Game, Architectural Boat Tour over NASCAR Car Race, Blues Fest over Taste of Chicago, The Holiday Parade on Michigan Avenue defeated Bears Home Games, St Patrick's Day and Turning The River Green won over Fourth of July Navy Pier Fireworks, and finally The Chicago Marathon took out The Polar Plunge.

Now let us move on. It is time for the "elite eight” matchups and then take it from there to the semifinals and finally concluding with the ultimate and much anticipated championship match.

Here we go:

Quarter Finals

The Air and Water Show vs. Millennium Park Summer Concerts:  A quality vs. quality match up here. Tough call. Those summer concerts at Millennium Park have really become a nice tradition for the folks downtown, and in a way kind of symbolize the free, easy and mellow nature of a nice warm downtown evening.

The Air and Water show brings not only downtown residents, but also many from the suburbs and out -of-towners as well. It is a two day event that draws huge crowds to the lakefront. The crowd enthusiasm, the noise, the sights of the Blue Angel planes diving and flying over nearby buildings is pretty awesome. As a bonus, the Friday “practice day” adds even more flavor and excitement to this August special event weekend.  Love both of these worthy contestants…..but only one can advance. The Air and Water show moves on!

Lollapalooza vs. Architectural Boat Tours: What an interesting match up of two completely different styles. The Architectural Boat tours are more passive, pensive, educational and quietly entertaining in nature, while its opponent Lollapalooza is anything but quiet OR educational!  Tradition vs. rock and roll. Education and culture vs party on! Age vs. Youth.

All the components are here for an absolute classic “opposites attract” match up. The winner? We have to choose one—so let's go with “ Lolla ''. It has become a huge weekend event, much anticipated by many, and brings in tons of out -of -towners into the city, not to mention bringing in a nice payday for our city coiffeurs.

The Blues Fest vs. Holiday Parade on Michigan Avenue: Cinderella continues her run!  Underdog Blues Fest, which upset Taste of Chicago in round one of the tournaments, pulls off yet another stunner! The Holiday Parade in December has become a Chicago staple, with crowds lining up and down Michigan Ave 4 or 5 lines deep.

The pageantry is awe inspiring no doubt, but Blues Fest just has something special. While the crowds don’t go “crazy”, they do enjoy, en masse, some really cool music and as has been previously stated, Blues Fest draws a really interesting mix of people. It kind of symbolizes the unique mix that our city has to offer, and also brings out the wonderful tradition of our Chicago’s Blues scene. In yet another upset, on to the final four for Cinderella Blues Fest!

Chicago Marathon vs. St. Patrick’s Day and Turning The River Green: Never really a chance here for St Paddy’s Day and The River Turning Green. How do you compete with the powerhouse, internationally acclaimed event that the Chicago Marathon has become? Just too many positives here for the big city running day, but a kudos and a nice run for one of Chicago’s most unique traditions— the dyeing of the river green. The Marathon marches ( or races?) on.

The Final Four:

Lollapalooza vs. Air and Water Show:  two superstars in a final four competition here. Definitely amongst Chicago’s best of the best.  Huge crowds for both, both are extremely “ noisy”, and both are three day events (if you count practice days for the Air and Water show). So, it is a tough call. On a dramatic last second shot let's give it to the Air and Water Show. Maybe it’s longevity as a tradition in Chicago, compared to just a couple decades for the rock concert.  Maybe it’s the noise factor. Maybe it's the clean up afterwards that is a factor? (Clean up from Lolla takes two weeks, Air and Water show? One Day) In a thriller, on to the championship goes The Air and Water Show!!

The Chicago Marathon vs. Blues Fest: All good things must come to a close, and thus is the case for the upset, Cinderella story of Blues Fest.  Who would have thought at the beginning of this tournament that Blues Fest—which barely even made the cut ( we could have picked Jazz Fest or the Windy City Smokeout, for instance) would have advanced all the way to the Final Four.  But they did, and what a great run/ride it was.  But it is over now, as The Chicago Marathon is too strong, too powerful, too popular and too impactful to be matched up to.  Thanks for the memories Blues Fest, and on to the championship for the Chicago Marathon!

The Championship:

Air and Water Show vs. Chicago Marathon: Both of these two Goliaths come in tired after a long and grueling tournament thus far. No question, both are wonderful Chicago events that draw thousands to the city. We have already waxed poetic in the above matchups about the greatness of The Air and Water Show. But The Chicago Marathon has some extra advantages.

It draws people from out of town, including from other countries-Air and Water does not.  It uses tons of Chicagoans as volunteer helpers—Air and Water does not. Marathon runners stay in the city and proudly wear their medals as they walk the streets of our city sometimes days after the event— no such long lasting luster for The Air and Water Show. And as an added bonus (as if they needed one), the Marathon promotes fitness and a healthy lifestyle— not so much the case for Air and Water Show.

 For those and many other reasons….The Chicago Marathon is our Champion!

…We want to thank all the worthy contestants for participating in this tournament, as well as any readers who have made it this far!

A final note: Any disagreements, protests, or other related arguments regarding the bracket results above can be sent to our new (for this column only) email at  [email protected]