Thousands of Winfrey’s fans gathered on Michigan Avenue to help the talk show celebrate the kickoff of the 24th season of her show
Oprah Winfrey took to a stage on Michigan Avenue, which is known as the Magnificent Mile for its upscale shopping, presiding over a 2-hour-plus street party celebrating the kickoff of the 24th season of her show on Tuesday.
Open-mouthed fans cheered from Illinois Street to the Chicago River, the sounds echoing off buildings, hundreds of police and security officers, and cardboard signs praising the talk show diva who has commanded the airwaves for 24 seasons.
“Chicago is the greatest city in the world,” Winfrey, wearing a canary yellow blouse and black slacks, told the crowd when she came out at 5:17 p.m., prompting cheers.
In the streetscape in front of the stage was a cheering, jumping, choreographed cross-section of Chicago.
Finding the transcendent in the theatrically staged, thousands of Winfrey fans and curiosity-seekers descended Tuesday on Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood. They gathered between metal barricades on Michigan Avenue, arriving in Chicago from Florida, California and Canada. They had their own reasons, but only one destination. Oprah was the only one who could make all the weirdness happen at once.
Diane Stimson lined up at 5:30 a.m., nearly 12 hours before the taping was set to begin, and by the afternoon the 43-year-old Chicagoan was dancing behind a metal barrier as she waited. She called Winfrey an inspiration.
“She worked her way to the top, and she made it,” Stimson said. “She gives us all hope.”
Several people said they wanted to come because of the difficulty in getting tickets for the regular tapings. Gloria Jones, 60, of Chicago, said she was excited because “I never get a chance to get a ticket, and I figured this is the closest I could get.”
People gathered near a makeshift stage at the Michigan Avenue bridge this morning and afternoon before the start of Oprah’s 24th season kickoff celebration. At 6:35 p.m., Near North District Sgt. Gene Richmond estimated that between 13,000 and 17,000 people were in attendance.
The line of people had grown from around 300 earlier Tuesday morning to over 1,000 by 9:45 a.m., according to security staff and independent counts of the crowd by the Tribune. Almost 2,100 people were in the first two corral areas nearest the stage by about 11:15 a.m., said Erin O’Shea, area supervisor with Medical and Safety Engineering of Chicago, a group helping to staff the event.
People were being staged on the northwest corner of Michigan and Ohio to get their hands stamped. Security teams were letting groups of 200 in roughly every 20 minutes. New arrivals to the crowd appeared steady and manageable.
The Black Eyed Peas sang their hit single “I Got A Feeling” as the crowd performed a choreographed dance. Hometown girl Jennifer Hudson gave her first performance since the birth of her first child.
Spotting one girl in the audience with an Oprah tattoo, the host quipped, “Hope you don’t regret it in your adulthood.”
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