Chicago Auto Show Crowds Set to Pass 1 Million

20 February 1999

    CHICAGO, Feb. 20 -- The following was issued today by the
Chicago Automobile Trade Association:

    Attendance at the 1999 Chicago Auto Show stands poised to cross the
million mark Saturday, as the show enters the final weekend of its 10-day
consumer run at McCormick Place.
    Mild weather, two weekday holidays, extensive media coverage and the auto
show's long-standing popularity as Chicago's biggest annual public convention
have combined to boost attendance to 828,942 through Friday.  With two days
remaining, attendance is 12 percent higher than the same day last year.
    "The larger McCormick Place South complex continues to pay dividends for
the Chicago Auto Show," show general manager Jerry Cizek said.  "The show's
attendance flirted with the million mark for more than a decade but failed to
get over the bar in McCormick Place East.
    "Attendance bettered 1 million in our first year here, in 1997, and it
grows larger each year."
    Chicago's winter, thus far a season of meteorological extremes, has
blessed the auto show since it opened Feb. 12. Holidays that day and
Monday -- Lincoln's birthday and President's Day -- closed schools, businesses
and government, generating increased weekday traffic at the auto show.
    Attendance also has been strong during the show's special weekday events:
Women's Day on Tuesday and a Wednesday - Friday canned food drive to benefit
the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
    The show's second Saturday traditionally is the busiest, with attendance
over the last several years averaging more than 170,000.  The final weekend of
the show usually attracts more than 310,000 people.
    The first Chicago Auto Show was held in 1901, making it the nation's
longest-running auto show.  It has been held in just three venues:  the bygone
Coliseum until 1961, the original McCormick Place and, since 1997, the
complex's newest partition, McCormick Place South.