This week Governor Pritzker announced the new guidelines for reopening of Illinois and Chicago. This is very welcome news as we safely move out to the pandemic and get back to business in Chicago for weddings and events. As a Chicago wedding planner it has been quite a hard year for my clients and a busy year for me of rescheduling my client’s weddings and cancelling of weddings due the the coronavirus pandemic. This year I also co-founded the Illinois Events Coalition with industry friends Michelle Durpetti and Collin Pierson. We created the coalition to advocate for those struggling in this hard time in Illinois, and to help educate and support our fellow event professionals.
Thew new reopening phase announcement caused quite a stir and we are still processing the information and have a couple of calls with both the Governor’s office and the BACP City of Chicago office to clarify some things in the announcement and how it pertains to Illinois events.
Some highlights of this press release are below:
Once 70% of people over 65 can be vaccinated, we will move to the Bridge phase which would allow 250 guests inside and 500 outside for events. Illinois must also maintain a 20% or lower ICU bed availability rate and hold steady on COVID-19 and COVID-like illness hospital admissions, mortality rate, and case rate over a 28-day monitoring period. To advance to Phase 5, the state must reach a 50% vaccination rate for residents age 16 and over and meet the same metrics and rates required to enter the transition phase, over an additional 28-day period.
In an update to current Phase 4 mitigations and the capacity limits of the bridge to Phase 5, individuals with proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test (PCR) 1-3 days prior to an event or outing do not count against capacity limit.
We are also awaiting to hear from Mayor Lori Lightfoot on how Chicago could be different when it comes to the reopening phases.
You can review the Governor’s press release here and details.
