Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Confusion is growing over some of the plans for Barack Obama's big election night party in Grant Park. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports despite the mayor publicly urging people to come to the park, plans shown Friday indicate those without tickets won't get within 3/4 of a mile of the main stage. And a group of ministers suggested they should stay away altogether.

Sen. Obama will address the crowd from that main stage when and if the outcome is clear, is starting to look like a stage, with scaffolding for lights, risers for cameras and tents for VIPs. But the area for the 65,000 invited guests is just a small part of the lakefront park, which stretches a mile and a half from Roosevelt Road to Randolph Street.

There's plenty of room, it would seem, for people to come down, even without tickets.

"We need to come and support our new president," Michael Hale said. he plans to go to Grant Park without a ticket.

"I'm not concerned. If they kick me out that's fine with me," Vincent DeLeon said.

The city revealed that Tuesday night, everyone will enter the park via Congress Parkway. At Columbus, these with tickets will be directed south along Columbus to Hutchison Field , where the event will be held.

Everything else south of Congress will be off-limits to spectators, so will the Buckingham Fountain area, which is surrounded by a construction barrier.

Those without tickets will be directed north to the area around the Grant Park band shell, 3/4 of a mile away.

"Common sense says if you don't have a ticket, don't show up at the affair," the Rev. Albert Tyson said Friday.

He was part a coalition of ministers at Friday's city briefing. That message appeared to be in sharp contrast to the invitation Mayor Richard M. Daley repeated as recently as Thursday.

"No way am I gonna tell people not to come down and celebrate with Senator Obama and his family and others," Daley said Thursday. "It does matter who you are. You wanna come down, we're asking you to come down."

But the city's emergency management chief said there was no conflict.

"People are gonna come down who don't have a ticket. We're fully aware of that. What we're trying to do is keep things as manageable and safe as possible," said Office of Emergency Management and Communications Chief Ray Orozco.

Plans revealed Friday call for street closings around the event site starting as soon as Saturday. By Tuesday evening, there'll be a parking ban from Lake Michigan to the Kennedy-Dan Ryan and from the river down to 22nd Street. CTA and RTA rush hour schedules will run until at least 2 a.m. Wednesday. And all days off for Chicago police officers have been canceled.

"I'm extraordinarily confident that we can keep Senator Obama safe, that we can keep the citizens of Chicago safe and we can keep the neighborhoods safe," said Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis.

Still unknown is what kind of audio or video feeds there will be for spectators at the north end of the park. Or what other facilities there will be. The city said to expect that announcement Monday.

The ministers say neighborhood viewing parties to be announced this weekend will present a better option than ticketless supporters arriving in Grant Park.

So from "the more the merrier," early this week, what we're hearing now is "not exactly."

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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