It was likely to be a lousy weekend for Taste of Joliet anyway.

This weekend accompanied by forecasts of repeated showers and occasional thunderstorms was slated for Taste of Joliet, the annual three-day summertime bash that was canceled for a second straight year due to COVID-19.

Still, there are other events being planned for the summer.

And, park officials can look at the gloomy skies without the anxiety that would normally come with rainy forecasts through a Taste of Joliet weekend.

“We got lucky with the weather for sure,” Joliet Park District Executive Director Brad Staab said Friday, using words usually reserved for sunny days.

Instead of getting ready for Taste, Staab has been working on Taste of Joliet 2022 along with a smaller event yet to be announced for August.

The alternative event, like Taste of Joliet, will be held at Memorial Stadium with live music, but will be “a much smaller scale,” Staab said.

“We don’t even want the Taste name associated with it,” Staab said, concerned that people may expect too much. “It’s just going to be an event to get the community together.”

The park district when canceling the Taste of Joliet in early May advised people to watch for an announcement of the alternative event to be held Aug. 20-22. But Staab said as of now, it’s only certain that the event will occur on Aug. 20 and uncertain whether it will extend through the weekend.

There will be other events coming in August and September.

New Orleans North, the annual downtown event usually held in June, will take place on Sept. 11.

The Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce & Industry expects thousands to show up based on response so far.

“We are thinking we are going to draw the same type of crowd,” chamber President Jen Howard said. “We are preparing for the same size and footprint for the festival.”

Adding that weather could still be a factor and that the chamber still does not know how comfortable people will be for a festival event by Sept. 11, Howard said the chamber still is planning for anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 people and maybe more.

A food court, main stage, roving entertainers and the features that people expect at New Orleans North will be back, she said. The event was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Noting that the chamber’s Aug. 2 golf outing has sold out, Howard said the signals so far are that people are ready to gather.

Mike Brick, an organizer for the Sept. 25 Tunes & Brews to be held downtown, is getting the same signals.

“People have called me and asked, ‘Are you going to have that this year?’” Brick said. “I know there is a demand.”

Brick, also development director at the Joliet Area Historical Museum, noted that the museum’s Rooftop Summer Music Series has been doing well, and the concert that was scheduled for Friday had sold out.

Staab said the park district’s Concerts in the Park series, held monthly in Preservation Park at 710 Taylor St., have had “great turnout.”

Taste of Joliet, however, is a singular event for the city, drawing as many as 28,000 for a single day depending on the popularity of the scheduled musicians.

The 2021 line-up was to feature rock performers Vince Neil and Bret Michael, and country singers Brett Young and Dylan Scott, who had been originally scheduled for 2020.

Whether the same performers can be scheduled for 2022 is “a good question,” Staab said. “There so much uncertainty in the music industry right now.”

If they do come, tickets will have to be sold again. Most of the people who had tickets for the 2021 Taste performances have turned them in for refunds.