A "Sample" of What You'll Taste at Chicago VeganMania

One of the key goals of Chicago VeganMania has been to give visitors the opportunity to savor all the wonderful vegan foods we can find in this great city. But how does one do that? After all, we'll only be there for six hours, and there's only so much food one can comfortably eat in that amount of time.

Well, after a lot of brainstorming and discussion, we feel we've arrived at a pretty good way to let you try out a lot of different foods. Here's how it works:

There will be a big room full of stands from some of Chicago's best vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants, and well as companies with prepared foods made from their vegan products. Everything will be available in sample sizes, and some places (maybe even all of them) will offer larger meals as well. When you arrive (oh, did we mention that admission is free?), you will be given five tickets, each good for one of the sample-sized foods. If you decide you want to keep sampling or eating after that (and we bet you will!), you can purchase additional tickets for 50¢ each. Larger items will be available for multiple tickets.

We're building a great list of restaurants and food purveyors who will be there, and we'll share that as soon as we've nailed it down a bit better.

Besides all the great food, there will be a lot of other great vegan merchants, as well as a vegan art show, the latest in vegan fashion, an exhibit of Chicago's vegetarian history, music and live entertainment, children's activities (including a children's spectacle parade), and much, much more.

Stay tuned for updates...