Tickets are going to sell out quickly for this star-studded event, so buy them now. more ›

Next produced a new advertisement for their latest menu; you can be guaranteed to get a table if you have about $4000. more ›

Looks like renting the whole restaurant didn't work out. The upside? Now you can get in without 40 friends and a bankroll as large as a small country. more ›

Benjy will have the recap of tonight's Bulls game for you in the morning. We wanted to let you know that tickets to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat will go on sale 10 a.m. tomorrow at Bulls.com, 1-800-4NBA-TIX and Ticketmaster. more ›

This just in - The Aviary, Grant Achatz's new cocktail bar adjacent to Next, will start taking reservations. However, any restaurant connected with Next (which has a fairly complex system of ticketing) can't take just any reservations; there has to be a twist. If you want to drink their gastronomically complex cocktails, you can email reservations@theaviary.com between 10 AM and 4 PM on the day you want to drink with your party size and contact information. Don't clear your calendar, since only 10 emails will be randomly selected each day. Hints that this would happen have been coming on Facebook for a while, as it seems the crowding and seating situation at The Aviary isn't as organized as the owners would like it to be. more ›

Growing Home, a Chicago-based non-profit that provides job training through urban agriculture, is throwing a fabulous gala on Thursday - and you might be invited. The event, at the Chicago Cultural Center, will feature food by Paul Virant (of Vie and soon-to-be Perennial Virant) and desserts by Sweet Miss Givings. Bill Kurtis will be giving the keynote address, and a silent auction will be offering up a "Chef for a Day Package at Charlie Trotters," among other great prizes. Tickets are normally $125 each, but we have two to give away to a loyal reader. Enter to win after the jump. more ›

The ticket frenzy for Next started yesterday. First, their system had trouble kicking out tickets, as it was incompatible with Internet Explorer. Then, people had trouble getting through to the Next website! We can attest to the fact that some people did get in, and others made reservations - we'll be headed there very very soon. But, what if you didn't sign up in advance or you don't want to wait till May? AV Club reports that some tickets are going on Craigslist for up to $3000. We've got some helpful tips so that you don't get burned. more ›

This Friday at noon, tickets will go on sale for the greatest pork-themed day of the year. Baconfest Chicago, in its third "season" of operation, will showcase more than 50 chefs and restaurants, including favorites like Girl and the Goat, Naha, Moto and The Bristol. If you want to get your pork fix, buy tickets early. $65 gets you into the event, held on April 9th at the UIC forum. Proceeds will benefit the Greater Chicago food depository. Check after the jump for a complete list of exhibitors. more ›

While last season saw more than a few no shows at some late season games, there's no reason to expect that tickets to see the Cubs play at Wrigley won't remain among the hardest to come by in all of Chicago — except for maybe Bears-Packers playoff tickets. With the players still in Arizona, Cubs fans are still optimistic that this might be the year for their Cubbies, and even if they're 20 games out come August, at least Wrigley sells beer. more ›

If you are interested in attending Whisky Fest, the booziest day of the year in Chicago (aside from St. Patrick's Day) get your tickets now. The Tribune reported last night that the event was down to 250 tickets, out of almost 2000 originally on sale. The event lets whiskey/whisky lovers taste hundreds of whiskeys, scotches and bourbons, along with a few other spirits. There are seminars, meet and greets with distillers and a gourmet buffet to munch on all night long. This event is certainly not for everyone, but if you're a whiskey lover, it could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Tickets are $135 for regular admission, and the event will be held at the Hyatt Regency. more ›

Are Bears fans so confident that their team will roll an opponent with a losing record that they're already thinking about the NFC Conference Championship? Have they gotten soft in this January weather? Saving their money for a Verizon iPhone? Whatever the reason, demand is lagging for tickets for the Sunday's Bears-Seahawks playoff game at Soldier Field. more ›

Even with most food trucks in their winter hibernation, it doesn’t stop shopkeepers from turning up the heat on both food trucks and guerrilla marketers on wheels, calling again for stricter rules and regulations on all of their operations. more ›

Food trucks throughout Chicago have thousands of followers, and the number of fans on facebook are growing every day. Newspapers and magazines alike can’t stop raving about these new “foodie” destinations. And we are delighted with Chicago food trucks’ new food offerings. Is this a unanimous chorus of welcomes for food trucks? Not quite yet. more ›

Almost two months back, we mentioned how the company that is leasing the parking meters from the city of Chicago was getting ready to dive back in to the ticket writing game after a hiatus due to all kinds of issues. But now they're back and in the first three weeks of their new round of ticket writing, they showed they mean serious business. According to the Sun-Times, Chicago Parking Meters LLC wrote 1,345 tickets between June 21 and July 14. Even scarier? All those tickets were written by five workers, about a third of the total workforce the company will have trotted out by year's end. Besides boosting the city's revenue in tickets, though, there's another motivation for CPM to write as many tickets as they possibly can. more ›

As the memories from this year's Lollapalooza are still pretty fresh, the megamusicfest has set the dates for next year's edition, August 5 through 7, making note of it as the fest's 20th anniversary (though the fest was off 1998 through 2002 and again in 2004 before staking its roots in Grant Park). The generic date of "next spring" is mentioned as when tickets for the fest will be available bu there's no mention of any of the discounted "early bird" tickets which went on sale for this year's fest just days after last year's. Let the speculation for 2011's headliners begin .... ! more ›

We're just four weeks away from the annual Pitchfork Music Festival and it's time to start putting together your attack plan for the weekend. The fest has revealed set times for the weekend so you can start mapping out how you're going to attack the fest and see all there is to see. Among other things we now know, the earlier start time on Friday isn't all early so you won't have to miss too much work. Gates will open at 3 p.m. with the first act hitting the stage at 3:30 p.m. Gates open at high noon on both Saturday and Sunday. Three-day passes are sold out and single day Saturday and Sunday passes are gone as well so single-day passes for Friday are all that are left. more ›

Green City Market switches locations from the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum to outside today. They've also opened up ticket sales for their annual Chefs BBQ on July 15. The event, now in its tenth year, brings together most of the best chefs around and has become one of the high watermark culinary events in the city. more ›

Half Acre announced on their blog today that tickets for the Chicago Craft Beer Week closing party that they're hosting next Saturday, May 22, are now on sale. Tickets are $25 each and only 200 are available. When they're sold out, that's it. more ›

In case you missed our reminder last night, advance general admission Lollapalooza tickets are on sale now for $190. Once these are gone, you'll have to shell out $215 for your three-day pass. This year's edition of the festival is August 6th through 8th. more ›

Fans will have to shell out a little more to see their beloved Bears play this season. The football team announced a ticket price hike in certain sections of Soldier Stadium on Friday, Chicago Breaking News reports. more ›

Codifying what City Hall officials say has been an unwritten policy, the city council approved an ordinance proposed by Mayor Daley to let drivers off the hook once a year if they've overstayed their parking meter for five minutes. The ordinance will dismiss tickets issued to motorists within the first five minutes of parking meter expiration, once a year, provided they've kept their receipt. "The change will assist motorists who are occasionally ticketed for accidentally overstaying the time on their pay box receipt by a few minutes, despite trying to comply with parking requirements by purchasing adequate parking time," Daley told the Tribune. more ›

Mayor Daley introduced a measure today to the City Council that could give Chicago drivers one "get out of jail free" card on parking meter tickets per year. If it passes, each driver would get one challenge of a parking meter ticket as long as it was issued within five minutes of the meter time expiring. Said Mayor Daley when announcing the measure, "I understand that many people were angry over the way the parking meter plan was implemented last year. This grace period is another step by Chicago Parking Meters to improve the parking meter system and add convenience for motorists." Which is nice, but the meters were leased for a reason - the city is strapped for cash - and giving up potential revenue from tickets can't help matters. more ›

One car has managed to collect 42 tickets while it sits untouched and unmoved on the West Side. In spite of collecting the tickets and tow orders for over two months, the car never budged. CBS2 tries to figure out why. more ›

The Men Who Stare At Goats -- based on an actual government program dedicated to the results of some REALLY intense goat staring, is one of the few meetings we're anxiously awaiting. Well, a lucky reader of Chicagoist need not wait like we mere mortals! We have a pair of tickets to the screening in Chicago on Wednesday at 7 p.m. that includes access to an exclusive after-party! No word on if goats will be present at either event. more ›

Bummed you missed U2 for their recent stint at Soldier Field? Don't worry, Bono + The Boys have scheduled a return trip for July 6, 2010 as they extend their massive tour. With several open days on either side of that date, additional shows are also possible. Tickets will go on sale in November, though specifics haven't been announced. [Tribune] more ›

We know Marian Hossa and Patrick Kane have been dominating the hockey headlines lately, but there's reason for Blackhawks fans to rejoice: single game tickets went on sale earlier today. Skate on by and pick some up. more ›

Trent Reznor took to Twitter today to announce the dates for the upcoming NIN tour - allegedly their last - and the Chicago dates are August 28 and 29, both shows at the Aragon Ballroom. The NIN.com presale for both dates is July 17 and general on-sale will be July 31. Mew will open both dates. more ›

The Batter's Eye, the club in dead-center field at Wrigley, is being opened up to individual ticket buyers. Previously available only to parties of between 75 and 100, the club will cost you $165 but that includes "an unlimited food and beverage package." Click here for a list of available games and your chance to purchase tickets. more ›

We’ve seen plenty of arrest-worthy parking meter shenanigans over the past couple of weeks: graffiti, vandalism, filling meters with pennies, gluing quarters into meter slots and more. The rage of Chicago residents over the increased parking fees seems to be growing steadily, and we expected to see stories about an upsurge in arrests and tickets as the city and the police retaliate. What we didn’t expect: threats of arrest for… paying parking meters. more ›

With just the tip of the lineup iceberg announced, we're already pretty pumped for this year's Pitchfork Music Festival. Rest assured we'll be sweating it out this year at Union Park (July 17th through the 19th) just like we do every year. Lucky for us, this Friday the 13th brings us the start of ticket sales for the fest. And while Lolla's allotment of $60 tix sold out lickety-split, Pitchfork's tickets are always on the cheap anyway, making it a solid deal. more ›