Navy Pier is no longer the top tourist attraction in Chicago and the Midwest, according to a new crowd-counting methodology.
The pier didn't lose visitors, but Millennium Park gained a lot of them in the new count that would put it in first place, even as it takes on an expanded mission. The free park east of the Loop hosted 12.9 million visitors in the second half of 2016 alone, according to the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, which commissioned the head count.
That's up from previous estimates of 5 million annual visitors to the nearly 25-acre park, and would also put the park ahead of Navy Pier's record 9.3 million visitors for all of 2016.
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“It's not a competition. It's not Navy Pier that's losing anything,” said Mark Kelly, DCASE commissioner. “It is rather that this newest park has captured our imagination and has become the square of our town and brings in an amazing number of people.”
The numbers “tell us what an incredibly exciting park and space we have and there's nothing else like it in the world,” Kelly said. “It's filled with amazing free programming and brings joy to everyone because it's an art park.”
“This is a tremendous recognition that collectively as a city we have done something important and become a cultural destination,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “I probably thought 5 million was low, but I never thought (the number of visitors) was this high.”
As for Navy Pier potentially losing rank, “it's not a zero-sum game,” Emanuel said. “When I was first thinking about building the Riverwalk, one of the pushbacks was, 'Oh, you're going to compete with the boardwalk at Navy Pier. This has not happened… A world-class city has many world-class locations.”
DCASE was to present the findings, including a new mission statement for Millennium Park and a new Millennium Campus label for its surroundings, at Thursday morning's annual meeting of tourism promotion organization Choose Chicago, Kelly said.
The measurement technology uses electronic sensors to measure unique mobile phones and was used in a pilot program near the park's central sculpture Cloud Gate (The Bean) and at several park entrances from June 15 to December 31 last year. The extrapolation was used to account for non-cell phone users, but not to cover areas of the park not reached by the sensors, Kelly said.
While the technology from third-party vendors has not been implemented in this way in Chicago before, it is similar to that used in other large public spaces worldwide, the department said.
“Navy Pier congratulates Millennium Park on its success in 2016,” said Marilynn Gardner, president and CEO of Navy Pier Inc., the nonprofit organization that manages the pier. “Given the park's location, popularity and the addition of Maggie Daley Park, it's no surprise that it's a gathering place for many people. The numbers underscore Chicagoans' love for parks with great programming.”
Also, it's kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison. A spokeswoman for Navy Pier, which has long billed itself as the Midwest's top tourist destination, said she believes the pier's number comes from more traditional crowd estimation methods, such as the one that yielded the 5 million figure for Millennium Park.
DCASE is in the midst of a campaign to make full use of Millennium Park, originally a pet project of Mayor Richard M. Daley that was plagued by cost overruns but has become a hit with the public since it opened in 2004. It is located southeast of the intersection of between Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street, the park features attractions such as The Bean, the outdoor Pritzker Pavilion for music, the Crown Fountain, Lurie Garden and McCormick Tribune Plaza and ice rink.
The Chicago Blues Festival moves to the park June 9-11, and a new SummerDance celebration will invite the public to join a big group dance in late August. The full line-up of classical and pop music concerts and other festivals will continue. The crowd count was commissioned as part of an effort to better utilize and understand the park, Kelly said.
“This is an eye-opener,” said Kelly, who took the helm of DCASE last year. “Whether it's 5 million or 13 million, we're going to be much more focused on the guest experience. Millennium Park is the gateway to the cultural experience in the city. Our goal is to connect the park with all the cultural power of the city.”
To that end, the new mission statement reads: “Millennium Park and Cultural Center is Chicago's city square in which we engage our diverse audiences in exciting, thoughtful and ambitious programming that also supports our cultural landscape.”
The new Millennium Campus concept includes Maggie Daley Park to the east (which had approximately 3 million visitors in 2016), the Art Institute to the south, and the Cultural Center to the west, which are connected to Millennium Park by a bridge or Pedway.
Since the 12.9 million figure is for just over half a year and for only parts of the park, it doesn't seem hard to imagine that the full annual visitor total could be 25 million or more. This places the park firmly in the top tier of US attractions, along with the likes of Times Square and Central Park in New York City and the National Mall in Washington, DC
“But it's really only,” Kelly said, “because this park is full of free cultural programming. As far as we know, there is no other city in the country that even remotely comes close to the amount of exciting free programming that we offer.”
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @StevenKJohnson
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