Chicago offers, surprisingly enough, many opportunities to catch exciting, accomplished and emerging music across genres, with oodles of concerts free of charge, meaning they have to funded by others than attendees. Our extraordinary summer events season launched last weekend with the city-sponsored, all-free 34th Annual Chicago Gospel Festival in Millennium Park and I’m psyched for the 36th Annual Chicago Blues Festival next weekend (planning to somehow dart off to the Printers Row Lit Fest, simultaneously at the opposite end of the Loop) as well as the Jazz Institute’s free three-day Birthday Bash June 28 to 30 (which is the day of the fifth annual Chicago Mariachi Festival) and summer’s end 41st annual Chicago Jazz Festival.

But this article at TheTriibe.com reports on a panel of South Side summer event presenters — specifically the Chosen Few Picnic and Festival and the Silver Room Sound System Block Party — whose successes have led to more financial challenges, without (they say) sufficient support from participating businesses, despite their event-generated profits. (Thanks to my editor Philip Montoro at the Chicago Reader for sending this around.)