Lollapalooza lowers COVID-19 test standard despite rising cases; Chicago Mayor Lightfoot said she isn’t having ‘second thoughts’ about the festival

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she isn’t having any “second thoughts” about allowing Lollapalooza to go forward, even as COVID-19 cases spike and the safety standard for admittance to unvaccinated guests has been lowered from what was originally announced.

In the weeks before the city welcomes hundreds of thousands of spectators to Grant Park for the four-day festival starting Thursday, Lollapalooza quietly loosened the safety standard for unvaccinated guests. In May, Lightfoot first announced the festival would require attendees who aren’t fully vaccinated to get a negative COVID-19 test result within 24 hours of attending Lollapalooza each day.

It’s unclear when the testing window change occurred but it appears it was between June 18 and July 8, according to a review of the festival’s public communications.

Now the city and Lollapalooza are allowing the festival to go forward with negative tests up to 72 hours before a guest enters, according to the festival’s website.

For her part, Lightfoot said she doesn’t have concerns about Lollapalooza happening.

“It’s outdoors. We’ve been having large-scale events all over the city since June without major problems or issues,” Lightfoot said. “The Lolla team has been phenomenal.”

Lightfoot also said it’s important for attendees to demonstrate a negative test within a “reasonable period of time,” and indicated it could be more than 24 hours. Lightfoot said unvaccinated entrants would need a negative test within 48 hours but acknowledged she might be wrong about that.

News of the lower standard for admission comes at a time when Lightfoot is facing criticism from people who fear the Lollapalooza festival could become a superspreader event.

Some have pointed to what happened at a Dutch music festival as a warning for Chicago.

After more than 1,000 people tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a music festival in early July in Utrecht, Netherlands, a representative of that city’s health board told a Dutch broadcaster it was a mistake to allow unvaccinated attendees to get in with a negative test within 40 hours of entering.

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A spokesman for the Utrecht Health Board said the 40-hour time period was too lax, leaving too much time for people to get infected between receiving the test result and attending the festival.

The Utrecht festival had a total of 20,000 attendees over two days, compared with a full capacity at Lollapalooza of 400,000 over four days.

Tribune reporter Tracy Swartz contributed.