The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

e-mail, what a pain that ended up in.

You remember that friend that writes a really long e-mails,

you open them up, you feel like you got homework?

You can't read this dissertation now.

I'm gonna keep that as new.

I never even read them half the time as you hit reply.

Sounds good.

Don't write back ever.

This is amazing how e-mails changed our lives.

So if you ever get a handwritten letter in the mail,

you're like, what the?

Has someone been kidnapped?

Well, I'm not open.

It's probably filled with anthrax.

E-mails definitely made sending regular mail at your email.

You're like, when I stuck in them bloke,

now I got to go outside.

What am I a triathlete here?

Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work.

I do love how informal e-mails miss,

but then when I have to write an e-mail to a smart person,

I get all tense.

Great.

Now to be sure this is a complete sentence.

I guess I'll capitalize a letter or two.

That's a symptom of being lazy when you can't quite

reach the shift key.

Make it the idea.

Oh, once upon a midnight, dear, you up with something in my head.

I couldn't escape that memory of the phone calling

to the management team, brand new management team,

the company of a 5K.

Let's talk to our guest here.

Patrick Flynn is here.

He is the general manager of 5K.

We've got the sales director, Kevin McDougal and Stacy Van Oot.

Oost is an SNS.

I know it.

Who's the executive director?

This is the full management team.

You guys just took over the management of the management of

real-whole win.

Just recently, right?

March 6th.

March 6th.

So was anything up and running on March 7th?

Pretty quick.

That's a thing.

It doesn't work that fast.

I know you got Sam and Arama coming up because we just had the gentleman who's the president

of Sam and Unlimited on and they're all ready for their.

It's been years since we had a party there at Sam and Arama.

It's been out on the causeway.

Yeah.

Behind Reef Point.

So they're bringing the party back.

Back to where it belongs.

And you know, I was telling him, when I first joined this place in 1991, we broadcast from

Sam and Arama.

I'm not from this area.

I'm a New York City boy.

And I said, Sam and Arama, what the heck is that?

And they said it's a fishing contest, but there's a big party, a festival involved.

And they said, so what do I do?

You said, well, we broadcast from there in a boat.

I said, in the boat?

In the water?

No.

It's on land.

I'm building that around there.

So you know, that's what we did.

We did it for every year.

And I have a couple of pictures I shared with him.

One is, I'm going to tell my phone, I'll show you later, a very young rookie congressman

was joining me for the night.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Yeah, just got started.

Okay.

And then I got a picture and I can't explain it, but I showed it to him.

Somebody sent it to me.

They found it in their archives or whatever.

And it's from the 90s and there were five young women in there who were a calendar.

They were some of bar count, some bar put out of calendar.

And they're all surrounding me.

It's the only time in my life.

I actually have five women.

And you like seminar and a lot more than didn't it?

Well, and I can't explain it other than what was written on the bottom of the Polaroid.

I said, I have no recollection of this.

You think I'd remember something?

Sure.

What I did.

But we had such great times there.

They're in those parties.

They had the kids with their little fishing pond and they had the beer place set up there.

It was run by the, I think the Tuesday optimists ran it for you.

They did.

Was it Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday?

What's your optimist?

Was it Tuesday?

I think there's Tuesday optimists, yeah.

And then they were all for them at Douglas Park, then they got two pessimistic and they

were not.

We're so optimistic.

But it's back with Sam and unlimited running it and he was real excited about it.

I'm kind of excited.

Yeah.

We're excited about it too.

The thing I didn't find this out to last year that people fishing all the way up into

the door county can register fish for Sam andorama.

I didn't know that.

I thought he was just going to, he's got people from Australia.

Well, they catch that are watching them in Australia or the people, no, no, no, no,

they come with them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't know that you, you know, pretty much the full, you know, coastal waters of Lake

Michigan can qualify for fish that they pull out.

They can, there's registration stations, I guess, in the various markets and can register

them for the Sam andorama contest here in Racine.

I didn't know that until, until, until last year.

You know, with the grand prizes, $50,000, yeah, $50,000 boats and all kinds of things.

They would bring me up from Australia, $50,000.

We talked about the cheaters and they have ways to prevent people from cheating.

There was a one I saw on the court cam on TV at Watch That Show.

I love watching all these crime shows.

Oh, yeah.

You and my wife, it keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I don't want to be on the big line.

And what they did, these two guys would catch fish and they put weights in the fish.

Yeah.

They're with sinkers.

And the way they caught them was, I said, there's no way this fish could weigh this weight.

No way.

And they cut the fish open.

And these guys went to prison because that's wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you, when you're trying to steal $50,000, whatever it was.

So they wound up going to prison for that.

But he said there are other ways and they're, they're smart to it.

They'll fill the fish with ice.

And by the time after the fish is with the ice, they'll melt.

The water will run out of the fish and they, and they couldn't get you, but they put

ice in it.

They're just catch a fish.

Yeah.

Get it weighed.

I appreciate the chip there.

Yeah.

Well, we can talk about it.

I want to steal $50,000.

Yeah.

We really didn't talk much about that because you just want people to get ideas.

But they're, they're savvy.

They, they know, and they never had a cheater here.

So, and they put the fish on display.

So that's Salmon Arama.

That's coming up.

We used to have our bridalik strap again to there every year.

I was in on the very first bridalik strap again.

Now, we just, that was packed to the raptors.

Now, one of our problems was we held it in January every year.

I have to Christmas.

Oh, it's the coldest weekend in January.

Not only was it cold, but it also snowed.

And if it snowed, people don't like to go out and snow.

Well, we found out one thing.

Brides, young brides, to be will do anything to get to a bridal fair.

Yeah.

They will have the Hyra plow truck in front of them to push the snow out of the way

so they can get to.

So it worked out now getting us there in the snow story.

Yeah.

It was a living brown deer over about an hour away from here.

And when it snowed, it was, it wasn't that easy to get here.

But we always packed that place all weekend.

We acted in, I think for two weekends we did the bridalik strap again.

And we used to pack it with different businesses.

I mean, it was sold out.

You couldn't get near the place.

And then the wonder came in and he said, I'm not doing that.

He didn't want to be bothered with it.

It is a big, it's a lot of work.

Yeah, there's a lot of logistics that go along with it.

And then you're, you know, of course, getting the booth space ready and, yeah, but then

all the brides dragged the moms and the bridesmaids and the mother-in-laws.

So that's what it's all about.

Now Memorial Hall has got a great history.

Now we, I've mentioned we did our first broadcast from there in 1926 on December 6.

It was live orchestra and they have records and skipping CDs or anything like that.

And so we have live orchestra on stage and that's how we turned this radio station on the

air.

In 1926, and yes, the 100th anniversary is coming up at Memorial Hall.

I'll say some pictures.

We had each one of our anniversaries.

I'm looking, I'm not ignoring you, I'm looking at your giant clock here.

So I'm not ignoring you.

We had our anniversaries there.

We had our 70th, 75th anniversaries there at Festival Hall.

I'm a Memorial Hall.

And what we did was we brought food in all day.

So we started at 5 a.m. with our broadcast, brought breakfast in and it was their breakfast

there till 9 9 30 and then at lunch, noon time, we continued the broadcast and we brought

all food in all day long pizzas and whatever we can write at a night.

We brought dinner in for everybody.

And so it was, it was from 5 a.m. until like 9 o'clock at night, it was food all day long.

The homeless people loved it.

They came in and we fed them, you know, they're people too.

They're listeners.

You know, everybody can enjoy the food and we had all people from the past in and we did

our complete broadcast from there at Memorial Hall because that was the site.

But there's some other great things that were brought there, Mark Eichor's to use to

work here, brought in an oldie show once with the diamonds, you know, your younger people.

You know, I remember that, but they had little Darlin, they had a few hits and so he brought

the bands in and we also brought in, they brought in the star of the movie, a Christmas

story, the young kid who played Peter Billings Lane.

You know, he brought his brother in, he was the guy who fell down in the snow and

put it up, you know, he brought him in and they had a showing of a Christmas story on

stage.

So great things go on at these places, the car shows at festival hall.

Sure.

I remember going to AWA wrestling shows.

Oh, really?

In the early 70s, they had doing house shows there.

Of course, a pancake day was there.

Yeah, yeah.

And if you ever watch pancake day by the corner, they used to flip these pancakes like

in the sky.

Yeah.

They used to go flying toward the ceiling and they brought it down right on the grill.

They had this round grill and it was really great.

The history of the building is amazing.

It's stepping back in time.

You walk in that building and just think about all the people and the events that have

come through there and you know, some of the inscriptions on the wall and of course,

the remembrances of Racine County War Dad and things like that.

So it's just really kind of a great Racine landmark.

So when did, when was it, you know, the history of it when it was building everything?

I don't know the history of it.

But I know it was relatively new when I got here in 1991.

In Festival Park.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, relatively new.

1987, 88.

It opened.

I think they started in 1983.

Yeah.

It was relatively new because it was a, they told me it was a Don Hudson car dealership there

when before festival hall was built.

And salmon around me used to have this open lot, just dirt and they used to put it on

there.

And then festival hall was built.

Memorial Hall has been there since the early turn of the century in 1900s.

Coming up on 100 years.

Yeah.

Well, they're coming about 100 years too.

Yeah.

I don't know why.

We've been playing on a big hundredth year celebration.

Yeah.

They've got inscriptions all around the inside of the building.

Yep.

Which is really great.

Yeah.

And I don't know what they mean, but they look like they're written in with Roman letters.

Well, the, the user or V's, I remember a little kid that doesn't sound out right.

They're, they're Roman letters.

They call Sesame Street about that one.

Which really nice there.

They have an upper deck like the, uh, uh, uh, balcony balcony where you they're, you

know, regular seating and then you can put as much seating as you want there.

All right.

And just a minute.

We're going to talk about people.

How they going to rent the place?

What people do there?

Rent it.

What they use it for.

How they can do it.

And you guys are the new management team.

So you're setting all your new programs and all your new rules and so forth.

And we're going to talk to each one of you and get the low down.

And what you guys are up to over there at Memorial Hall and festival hall and recene, they're

really, when you think about it, they're, they're just, you know, legendary here in this

town.

And not many people are able to use the, uh, Lake Michigan, like we do here, we just,

we find more uses for that place.

Right.

All right.

More coming up here.

We've got our team from 5K, the new management team at festival hall and Memorial Hall

we're talking to.

We're today.

We've got some showers and thunderstorms possible with a hind air 64 degrees.

The night becoming clear, those around 46 showers tomorrow, eyes near 55 right now.

Cloudy and foggy when that fog come from 51 degrees at WRJ.

And don't forget the pods are in town to take on the brewers at Family Field.

American Family Field 11, 35 AM game time.

That's right.

A morning game start.

But I guess so they can well out in San Diego.

It's like eight o'clock was it 10 o'clock in the morning, 11, nine o'clock in the

morning out there for the game.

That's coming up today on WRJ and hometown radio.

So we're fresh to civic media station 1400 AM 99.9 FM and 98.1 FM.

We're talking about festival hall and Memorial Hall.

We're celebrating the 100th anniversary Memorial Hall.

We have the 5K events team here to talk about it.

Let's get some background on each one of you here.

First of all, Patrick, give us some of your background.

Patrick is the.

We got it right here.

Don't say anything.

You are the general manager of this whole project.

So want to give us some background here?

Well, we started 5K events here and received back in 2010, primarily focused on endurance

events.

Prior to that, I was a vice president of the world's largest event planning franchise called

Planet Head events out of West Palm Beach, Florida.

So we did a lot of corporate shows shows, expos, trade shows, weddings, things like that.

One day you said to yourself, I can't take this sunshine and warmth anymore.

I got to get some place where it's below zero and snows and all look at this was constant.

Something like that.

I lived here all my life.

I worked for the company out of West Palm, but I've always lived here.

And that's a part of something that I dreamed about taking over some day.

So last 10 years, every time I came up for renewal, I would send a note to the city and this

year or last year, I finally came up.

Dreams do come true.

My nightmare, my wife would say.

Kevin, you're a bit of a radio guy.

I am.

I have a long history in radio in Southeast Wisconsin here, going back to the late 80s.

You came here from Texas in 1988, married a girl from here, which that's how it starts.

You follow a girl, but yes, spent some time in this building for a while and then moved

down to Milwaukee and just recently came from some Milwaukee radio stations.

But my connection to the park and the venues is I was on the Harbor Fest Board of Directors

for 10 years.

No.

I did.

I was the sponsorship director for nine years and the marketing director for the last year

of our event and just have a great passion and a great connection to these venues.

And when I had kind of seen through some very social media things that Patrick had made

the pitch for to get the contract and was kind of following it and reached out and it

has worked so far the last 10 days.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the term comes when you're drinking from a fire hose.

Yeah, drinking from the fire hose.

Okay.

Well, that's great.

And Stacy, you've, you're executive director.

Yes.

And give us a little bit of your background.

I get to put that mic in front of you.

I can hear every word you have.

I don't want to miss anything.

Yeah.

Born and raised in a Racine.

Oh, local Yoko.

Yes.

Love this place.

I've been with 5K events since 2018.

I've been the event director there.

And when the opportunity with Festival Park came up, I said, I'm all in, whatever I can

do to be there.

And here we are now.

So it is definitely busy.

And I'm loving every minute of it.

Okay.

So let's talk about the refurbishing Memorial Hall, right?

You said, what's, what, what needs to be done over there?

Well, as Patrick can tell, it was left in a bit of a state.

And so that's where the biggest effort has gone into, you know, just kind of refurbishing,

refinishing, cleaning, filling holes and walls, doors that we're missing, polishing.

Now Stacy's in charge of that, right?

Yeah.

She does have a heavy lifting.

And that's executive directors.

Yeah.

Anything over 10 feet.

We put her on that.

Okay.

So that's being done.

Festival Hall, though, is in good shape, though, right?

That's in great shape.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've been repainted, recarpeted.

We're working on the concession room outside in the park.

That's our next project to bring that up to, to, to parse, so we can start using that

for outdoor events.

Now, let me get, let me, the name of the actual grassy area behind there is what?

It's called Rotary Park, right?

Paul P. Harris Rotary Park.

Okay.

I'm going to get that straight because I screwing up with, when the gentleman from Salmon

Arammo is here, I kept going to a festival park, he said, well, it's actually Rotary Park.

When did that happen?

Do you remember?

I don't remember the exact year, but probably three or four years ago.

Yeah.

But there hasn't been any events in the park.

Actually, the, um, the city of Racine came to, um, connect the water in the bathrooms

a couple weeks ago.

And they said they haven't connected them in five years.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Okay.

What about the 100th anniversary of Memorial Halls coming up this fall?

Yeah.

We have the 100th anniversary coming up here in two years.

So we're kind of related.

So when you big doing some big planning, where you're thinking about some stuff now.

So we just met with Racine County Veterans last week.

Um, so we're talking about doing a whole weekend series of events.

There's always a, a, a mass type thing on Memorial Day, but, um, we're going to start

it out with a five K, um, and then lead into other events throughout the weekend.

But that's just came up last week.

Wow.

So you get some returning events too.

Big events that are coming back and again, people need things to do again, get away from

your cell phones and computers and streaming services and get outside and enjoy life a

little bit.

What are we have coming up here?

Well, we're excited about salmonorama.

We talked about that, uh, and probably the, the next big one, it won't happen until next

year, but, uh, Harbor Fest is returning, uh, some of the gentlemen that had been involved

in a sponsorship capacity with the former Harbor Fest, which ended in 2007 was the last

year, are bringing it back, uh, J, or July 4th and 5th of 2025.

So, uh, definitely looking forward to that.

Those things are moving long have had several meetings with them.

And, uh, so that, that's moving along and we're excited about that in and amongst other

things.

Um, yeah, that's probably the, uh, in terms of, uh, you know, excitement, things

returning to the park, salmonorama and Harbor, Harbor Fest.

And so you probably grew up going to a lot of these events because you're, you're from

here.

Yes, I did.

Uh, missing a lot of that stuff, um, especially, um, Harbor Fest.

I loved all the music, everything that went on there.

It's, it's nice to know that it's coming back, um, and just the excitement behind it.

Bringing back all your childhood memories.

You know, when they was talking about Milwaukee's always bragging about all their big

events on their lakefronts and McKinley marine up there, all the big, and Kenosha brags

about this, but we kind of start bragging about this stuff up here because there's so much

going on here, especially during the summer, but it's all year long.

Okay.

So we got to Harbor Fest.

Now, Latin Fest, I was surprised because I never heard of that, but you said it's kind

of a name change from what was here before.

Right.

You said, um, the people that are organizing that are from Fiesta, Mexicana that used to

be down at Bessel Park and they came in and they decided, um, that instead of just Mexican

Fest, let's, let's, you know, actually the gentleman's wife is Puerto Rican, so they

want to, they decided to call it Latin Fest instead.

Okay.

It's on my wife.

She's Panamanian.

There you go.

There you go.

Well, her mother's Panamanian.

I guess that makes her Panamanian.

That makes her.

Yeah.

And that'll be 2025 as well.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So, and some new events are coming, of course.

We won't talk about the new ones as well.

Yeah.

But I'm excited about the Racine River Fest and that's a collaboration of all the downtown

businesses that reside along the road river.

So it will start at Festival Park in the morning with a road river 5K and then it'll

lead into Pancake Breakfast at Memorial Hall or I'm sorry, Festival Hall.

And from there, we'll go to the Lakefront Artisphere, which will be under the colonnades

at Festival Park or Rotary Park if you want to call it that.

From there we go into the cardboard boat races over at Harbor Light Yacht Club.

That I could do.

Yep.

We'll do Dragon Boat Races on the river by the Main Street Bridge.

There'll be a Venetian night and it'll all end with fireworks on the lakefront again.

So but all the businesses along the river will be involved one way or another, including

all the Yacht Clubs.

That's great.

That does sound like it's a cardboard boat but I can do that.

I don't know if I do well Dragon Boat Races but I can do the cardboard stuff.

Okay, we've got the management team here at Fancake Events talking about what's coming

up at Festival Hall and Memorial Hall this summer and in the future.

That's all straight ahead.

More of it.

Just a moment here.

All the town radio refresh to Civic Media Station if you want to text a message to our guest

can at 262-300-7445-262-300-7445.

I graduated from college a little while ago.

That was cool.

People always ask those questions though, you know, it was like Michael, what are you going

to do after graduation?

I was like, well I'm pretty sure my parents are taking me out for dinner after that I've

no idea.

I was an English major.

All that's helped me do is critique my rejection letters.

My dad didn't want me being an English major when I first went down to school.

He's like, Michael, if you make the right decisions in 10 years, people would be calling

your doctor Michael.

I was like, Dad, I don't want to be a rapper.

I don't have a job.

I'm on the air day.

It's like, Michael, you don't have a job.

Why don't you work in McDonald's?

I was like, because I don't want to lose my eligibility for their monopoly game.

It was anything that you want, it was anything I couldn't do, just call on me and I'll

send it along with love from me to you, from me to you, to you just call on me and

I'll send it along with love from me to you, I got on the wrong to hold you, I'll keep

you by my side, I got this along to kiss you and keep you satisfied, it was anything

that you want, it was anything I couldn't do, just call on me and I'll send it along with

love from me to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you.

1737 at WR wasting radio, hometown radio refresh to civic media station.

We talked to the folks at 5K events.

This is the new management team at festival hall in Memorial Hall.

Legendary and Racine.

People who, you know, Stacy grew up here, she knows all about it.

It wasn't always here, but it's here now and a lot of big events coming up this year.

And new events coming up, events that returned.

And my guest, Patrick Flynn, who is the general manager of this 5K events, Kevin McDougal

sales manager and executive director Stacy Van Oost.

I got that right.

And Oost on Oost, I say a little accent to me.

All right.

So let's talk about, we talked about some of the, the events that are returning and so

forth.

There was some new events coming in and the bill city market.

Now that's not for sure yet.

That's something that we're working on.

Okay.

And it's similar to if anybody's been to the Kenosha Harbor market, you know, south of

us here, we're looking to pattern it similarly, similarly to where we have, you know, Saturday

morning, local retailers and crafts people and artisans, you know, set up booths and everybody

come and shop and have a great Saturday morning, basically at the at the festival park.

By the way, if you have any questions for our guest here, anything you do with festival

hall, memorial hall events coming up and so forth, he can text me at 262 3007445 262 3007445

on one more time because people say I talked too fast.

262 3007445 and Patrick, you should know as being in sales that you have to say things

10 times before people can get it.

Connect it.

Yes.

So that's three.

That's three.

Good morning, I have a little but as far as the Bell City Harbor market, we're working

on that, you know, watch the socials for we'll be soliciting for for vendors and so that's

something we're excited about and we think that it'll be great use of the grounds and

things that had a similar thing had happened, you know, years ago.

And so we want to bring those things back and give more people the reason to come downtown

and stay in Racine.

How did you find out about this at 5K events?

What?

Well, what?

What's the 5K events?

That's like a running thing, 5K.

It is primarily endurance events.

So a lot of five like lighthouse run, we did chocolate fast for the last probably ten

years.

Probably ten?

Yeah.

Okay.

So now we call it the Cringle Crush because they no longer do the chocolate.

Really?

Yeah.

Nestle.

When did that stop probably?

Nestle is not there anymore?

Well, it's there.

They don't really support it anymore.

But they don't use the the chocolate city, USA, they don't use that term anymore.

So they wanted to get away from that and-

Well, they make no, I'm switching over to Hershey's.

All on a second.

No, no, no.

Yeah, I think Hershey was, hey, you know, we're the chocolate city, not-

Oh, yeah, I was there.

Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Yeah, I was a kid.

My mom and dad.

That was quite a-

That was quite a kerfuffle between the other two for a while there.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Nestle's were the 5K bars and Hershey's were, the Hershey's were the ones you could break

apart or was that Nestle's?

You could break them into pieces.

I think they- I think they both do that.

Okay.

So if you'll watch the foods that made America, especially the one about Hershey is really

interesting, how that came about and so-

You bring the proms back because we, my wife and I was once the proms on TV and these

kids who are-

Yeah.

I mean, I remember my prom.

I didn't- I got a tuxedo and my-

Sure.

My didn't got a prom dress.

They all kind of looked-

Everybody looked the same.

Yeah.

Because all the prom dresses were the same.

All the tuxedos were the same.

Sure.

But now they really stand out some of these kids.

Yeah, they really do.

It's something that we're targeting, something that we're efforting to bring back.

We're beginning some preliminary discussions with the rotary here in the coming days and

they are the sponsors.

You know, we're seeing rotary sponsors that and it's out at other scene county fairgrounds

now.

Oh, they're really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It hasn't been at the festival park for-

Probably three years.

I think COVID they left and went to Union Grove.

Why, there was no COVID out in Union Grove?

Larger space.

Is it?

It's a larger space.

OK.

It was COVID that they started looking in and I think the next year the city was talking

about building a convention center so they weren't sure that festival hall would even

exist.

Oh, really?

So then rotary went out to Union Grove and expanded their base of schools that came

down to it.

But at the end of the day, the recene schools want the recene prom back downtown and that

is one event that's on our hit list that people have really a strong desire to bring

back downtown.

So Harbor Fest was number one, San Marama, then we had a then prom.

So well, that might be a little bit difficult to get down there.

I think they've established yourselves pretty well in Union Grove.

The other one is Italian Fest, you know, with, you know, holding hosting that at Romallage

that's going to be a real difficult one to get over, but we'll see what happens.

I just saw the godfather last week in the movies and now we can make an offer that can't

refuse.

Well, I'm not Italian, I'm a Scottsman, so I don't I saw how Marlon Brando got it, I would

look abroad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK.

So, you know, I don't know if you guys remember where your proms or mine was at the World's

Fair in New York, which is some of the buildings are still there.

And one was that big T the transportation building in Queens.

So we had ours in Queens at the transportation building and you could feel the building moving

when we were dancing because it's going to get a little, and you feel this thing.

And I'm sitting there watching the water levels and I'm supposed to be having a good time

and I'm saying, you know, the building's moving and they say, come on, get up and dance.

I said, look, look at the water, the water levels going up and down, have some more punch

done.

I think prom is a problem for us because the exposure to festival park in Memorial Hall

for the younger generation has always been prom.

And now there's a whole generation of kids that have never been exposed to the park.

And a lot of kids don't even know what the purpose of those buildings are because they

haven't been active.

Just tell them it doesn't move when they dance.

Yeah.

It definitely doesn't move.

So okay, so prom you're working on roller derby.

Roller derby.

Yeah.

The scene or the river rollers.

That's right.

Yeah.

River rollers.

So we met with them yesterday.

So we've got an event coming up with them in June and a few others throughout the year.

So and that's a lot of fun if you've never been.

It's at Memorial Hall in the auditorium and it's a dedicated group of ladies who love

roller derby.

That would be Memorial Hall.

Yeah.

Oh, you know, I went to a roller derby a few times on Long Island as somebody dragged

me to go see them.

Yeah.

It's exciting.

Why do people throwing each other over the railing, pounding on each other, kicking and throwing

them.

And.

Oh, wow.

So the Bay City Bombers there.

Sure.

Sure.

Rocco Welch of the movie called Kansas City Bomber.

Yeah.

Pray for the Kansas City Bomber.

Yeah.

I have a DVD.

The Kansas City Bombers.

I bet you do.

People beating up Rocco Welch.

Wow.

Okay.

You've also got the passion project.

Yeah.

That one.

I don't have a lot of information on it, but that's something through Ruseen Unified.

Okay.

Bring it in.

Okay.

And of course, the Racine Symphony.

They were just there last week.

That was phenomenal.

I'll tell you something about the Racine Symphony.

It was at Festival Hall and they brought in people from the sister city we have in

France.

They were there.

And I don't host that.

But the guy who normally didn't make it so they said, can you fill in as the MC that

night?

So I had a tuxedo and I got got over there and I did it.

That was a night I proposed to my wife.

Oh, okay.

What we did was I said, listen, I got the rock.

We're going to do it.

Can we do it on stage?

And the lead, I forget who the conductor was, said to the orchestra at intermission, don't

leave the stage.

Stay right here.

Don't get up.

And I announced the intermission and then I hold open the thing, got on one knee and

called her up.

She was shivering and shaking because she didn't know it was coming.

That night.

Thank goodness she was dressed to the night and I was in a tuxedo and I can see her hand

shivering.

What's really good is she said, yes, let me think about it.

That's horrible.

But she said, yes.

And then she got off and all the way, let me see the ring, let me see the ring.

Thank goodness there wasn't that bit, you know, cheap.

And so we proposed on stage in front of everybody at Festival Hall during the symphony

concert.

Oh, wow.

You can do it again on August 24th.

So mean arena.

I'm so married to the same lady.

Yeah, really.

That was seven.

Well, some married, it's going to be 18 years old about a little over 18 years ago.

Okay.

Oh, I could freak out.

You went, oh, that's what all the women did when I was all the way to, oh, it's so sweet.

That is so sweet.

What she was saying when I bought the ring, she picked out the ring.

So it's not like she didn't know what she didn't know what's coming at night.

Yeah.

That was the big shocker for it.

It was kind of, she said, well, nobody's leaving the stage.

Hmm.

Something funny is going on.

You don't like it coming up, but they're not going down.

Okay.

Soberfest.

What is that?

So that's a unique event.

We had a gentleman come visit us.

And he told us there's a large population of people that suffer from alcohol.

And they want to come out and see festivals and he wanted to go to bands, but all these

events have alcohol involved in it.

And so he created an event without the alcohol.

And so we're excited to have him on board.

His name is Jason Seifert.

Seifert.

So, and he's been volunteering at Festival Hall and he has been, he's been our superhero

and bringing that thing back to life.

Well, that's good because I don't drink.

I don't drink because I don't like the taste of alcohol.

I mean, I could, you know, if I'm in a social thing, I'll get a drink.

But I never had a beer in my life because I don't like the taste of it.

I took a sip once and he said, whoa, what do people see in this?

I don't see.

I don't like this and something.

So I just never had it.

So I'm the perfect guy.

Well, I don't drink so to either.

Okay.

So I don't know what I would drink.

You have water?

We'll introduce it.

We'll introduce you to mocktails.

This is it.

We'll drink this stuff.

This ice water.

So I used to drink four diet Pepsi's a day here when I first worked here.

I used to have four bottles and I drank four bottles and my wife said, you know, it's

kind of a lot of diet soda, which is basically all chemicals you're drinking.

Yeah.

And maybe you should cut back.

So I just stopped.

I stopped all soda that day and I said, here's my last one, my last step.

I threw it out and that was the end of that.

That was about eight years ago, but it limits what you can drink when you go out with

people because, you know, you don't want to seem like a, what the length is, everybody's

having a nice cocktail or a martini, all of a glass of water, please, could you put

ice in that water?

So I put a twist in it.

So it looks like a cocktail.

I didn't even like the twist in it.

That's the problem.

I'm a really boring person to go out with because I don't drink.

All right.

Before we take the break here, let's talk about October Fest.

That's a big one.

That's big one.

That'll be an in-house event.

So we'll bring in crafters again and beer garden and music.

So that, that we're creating in-house and if we can turn it over to a nonprofit that wants

to take it over, we'll do that, but we're going to make that one happen here.

All right.

A lot of things going on.

We have more to talk about with the folks at 5K events, they are the new managers over

at Festival Hall and Festival Park.

Festival Hall.

Festival Memorial Hall.

There you go.

I'm going to get all these straight.

If you have a question for our guest, you can text us 262-3007-445-262-307-3007-445.

749-WRGN Radio or hometown radio refreshed, the civic media stations there, we are over.

CDs aren't what they used to be.

That's the problem.

Hold on.

Let me just make sure this one never plays again.

Crack.

My guest here from 5K events, they are the new management team handling Festival Hall,

Memorial Hall, Festival Park, Rotary Park, am I missing any names there?

Nope.

You got it.

You got it covered.

Let's talk about the grand opening.

May 17 through the 18th.

Coming up.

Now what's that involved?

Well, we're inviting everyone from the city down to and outside the city, down to the

park to see everything that we're doing.

May 17th and 18th, we're going to have a beer garden and music and just a party to get

re-acquainted with the park and just kind of get a feel for everything that's coming and

just a re-introduction and meet us and maybe, you know, trying to have pretzels?

Yeah.

That's a beer.

Pretzels and peanuts and beer.

Beer.

Music.

Beer because it just looks like a lot of fun when people are drinking beer and I'm not

there with my little lemonade.

Are you having fun?

Yeah, I'm having fun.

I got a lemonade right here.

Yeah.

Lots of fun.

We have some zero beers you can have.

No.

I don't think it tastes a beer.

That's the problem.

Yeah.

My wife doesn't drink beer either.

Okay.

So we're kind of a no fun couple.

Yeah.

I'm not a big beer drink.

I like my brown liquors.

I'm a good bourbon and scotch guy.

I'll tell you one thing I learned to love when I came here because when I live in Georgia

I don't have brats and I remember driving up on the interstate company I worked for

in Milwaukee and I saw this place called BRAT stop and I said, oh, the brat stop must be

like where kids go.

You bring your kids the brat stop.

So I was telling the guy at the radio station and I passed this place called the brat stop.

He said, brat.

I said, what's brat?

He said, brat worst.

I said, what is it?

It is my favorite food now.

I'd barbecue it at my house and grill it all the time.

But I never heard of it before and you'd be surprised how many people outside Wisconsin

never heard of it or never had one.

I mean, I never heard of tailgating before till I moved to Wisconsin.

Okay.

I mean, the Shay Stadium, Yankee Stadium, there's no tailgating.

Well, there's no parking lots either.

Well, there's parking, but to run for your lives and quickly get into the stadium, there

was nothing like that.

And tailgating brats and so whenever I go on cheese curds, people know it.

It curds.

That sounds disgusting.

Well, have you tried them?

And the older the oil, they cook them and the better they taste.

You got to use this like, it's been used for three years.

We haven't changed the oil.

It's it.

Oh, they had so much flavor to those cheese curds.

You got to get, you know, they got to taste like fish and jalapeno poppers.

So, you know, really get the, and you guys have plenty of parking down there.

That's the good part about.

We do.

We do.

Because it's, you know, if you go into a place where it doesn't have any parking, I mean,

it's like, whoa.

Yeah.

So that's great.

So let's do a quick review here.

We have a lot of care events and coming up is the big grand opening.

What am I missing?

I miss anything yet.

I'm so happy talking about it.

Well, for folks that want to see all the events that are coming and go to festivalpark.com.

Okay.

Well, they can see the complete list of events.

They can reach out to us to, to book an event to, you know, come on down for a tour and

we'll do a little discovery meeting and see what their needs are and try and fit them

with the correct venue and the correct rooms.

Depending upon their party size and get them sorted out that way so they can reach out

to us to book their events at festivalpark.com.

You know, my wife and I for our anniversary booked a movie theater.

Oh.

Yeah.

One of the Marcus theaters.

We had in a small bunch of people, maybe at, you know, 12, 14 people come in and we

said, let's book a theater and we, the movie they were showing, you can pick any movie

wanted.

But they said, opening next week is two tickets to paradise or something like that ticket

to paradise with George Clooney.

And I said, it's perfect.

They said, well, we can show it in advance if you want to use that movie.

Wow.

And for $300, we had, we could bring out our own cakes.

Yeah.

They all got popcorn and stuff.

It was a great way to celebrate when you have a party and you can have parties there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, more than 12 people.

But, you know, you could do it.

We can actually go, and we were doing Indian Trail prom next weekend that's 700 people

sitting down the tables.

Wow.

So that's right inside festival hall.

That's nice.

The memorial hall can handle 1,250 sitting down just in the auditorium in the balcony.

So they're big venues.

So a quick review here on something now, do you do the catering or something you can

bring in your own catering?

How does that work?

We don't do the catering.

Yeah.

Recommendations?

Well, yeah.

We do.

And prior to us coming in, it was one caterer that pretty much had the exclusive rights

to the facility.

And our vision was, hey, this building was created and built by the citizens making donations

to the community, it belongs to the community.

So we've opened it up to all caterers in the community.

So well, more likely, we'll have a list of people we don't think you should do catering

with.

Otherwise, it's open to everybody.

So.

Well, that's great.

Now, how do people, if they want to, when a book festival hall of a memorial hall, you

went to our first, they can see the facility and correct, even meets their needs.

And like when we did the bridal extravaganza, that was huge.

I mean, that's, we had a lot of planning with that.

And the people at that time, Jerry Lopez, who was the maintenance guy, he's now works for

our company.

And he just made sure everything was the way we wanted it when we got there.

And it was, we did it for several years.

It was so good.

So big.

Yeah.

He was one of my first calls, trying to get him back to.

Jerry Lopez.

Yeah.

What a great guy.

He's dedicated to you guys.

Yeah.

He worked for us at Harbor Fest all those years, too.

I hate to keep quoting the Godfather, but as soon as they get out, they keep pulling me

back in.

That's the way it works.

Yep.

Okay.