We're talking about something coming up this summer.
It's harbor fest.
You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
harbor fest.
That's has been around for, I mean, a lot of time.
And it's coming back.
Well, we have two guests here, Mark Wittenberg and Gary
Sukko, who are going to tell you all about it 18 years.
So there are people graduating high school
this year that never experienced harbor fest.
When you're thinking of it like that, huh?
That's correct, Dan.
On fact, as we got feedback from a lot of people
that we've talked to along the way,
many of them remember harbor fest in a very positive way.
Oh, OK.
Yeah, and I remember, because we used
to do broadcast from harbor fest here back from my first
incarnation here.
So why did harbor fest end 18 years ago?
What happened?
Well, there was a number of factors
that I'm carried by it away.
Good to meet you, Dan, and say hi to you.
Don runs a very nice show here, by the way, everybody.
But it started in the 90s.
As time went on, there was a number of factors
that went into why it was discontinued.
But we're more focused on bringing it back
and Mark, myself, and Jeff, our old neighbors in Racine County
in Yorkville.
And one day, we're together.
And we had this brainstorm idea
that we should think about bringing harbor fest back.
So that's how it started, just to come on to guys getting
together and saying, what about harbor fest?
Yeah, and of course, it was all nonprofit group
that we put together here.
And one thing led to another, and here we are.
OK, so you're looking for what dates for harbor fest now?
June 13th and 14th at Festival Hall, a downtown Racine flag day.
Yeah, it's also a Father's Day weekend.
So we've got a great before Father's Day.
We think it kind of kicks off the festival season.
So we're kind of excited about having that date
and we're praying for a really good weather.
Yeah, because outdoors.
That's got a nice stage there for it, never that bad.
We actually are going to have both stages going
towards the smaller stage and then the main stage.
So we've got two stages and it will
have continuous music going on for the entire time
rotating bands in and out.
You know, we are so fortunate in Racine
to have that setting.
You're right on the lake.
The boats are going by.
I mean, that's when you think about it,
you can't do that in Topeka, Kansas.
It doesn't work.
It happens.
It works in Racine, though.
The big stage wasn't there last time.
Now it's here.
Well, we did have it.
We call it the flagship stage.
It's just it's redone a little bigger than it was.
We used to do a three day event.
We said, you know, a Father's Day
got to be tough people are busy.
So we said, let's start with a two day event Friday Saturday.
Everybody, you know, is waiting for Friday.
And in a summer time, we're going to kick off the festival
before summer fest starts.
You get into state fairs and everything else church festivals.
So we think it's a perfect weekend that Friday Saturday
is we're going to cross our fingers,
but we're hoping for great weather.
And if it is, we expect a huge turnout.
Do you have any bands lined up yet?
Well, we don't want to commit yet.
I don't think do we, Mark?
Yeah, you have no signatures on the front.
No, no signatures.
We're close to some announcing, you know,
the main thing is if this is going to become a reality
and that's going to be due to sponsorships.
Yeah.
So speak to this people who could sponsor right now.
What are you going to tell them?
Well, this is truly a community event
for the Racine and Racine County area.
And we understand that economic times are difficult,
but the message we want to give them
is this is an event that during its hay day
brought between five and 10,000 people per day
to the Racine area.
We think it's good economically.
We think it's good for the community.
Truly, our effort done when we talked about this
with the three of us was we wanted to give something back.
We're all businessmen that have been in the Racine area
for years and years and years.
And we truly wanted to do this at a nonprofit
and give back to the community.
And the message we give to the sponsors out there,
including the big companies in Racine,
is we need their support.
We need them to step up and consider
how they might sponsor and support an event like this
that will be good for the community.
And since the last hardware fest,
we have new hotels downtown.
We've got new restaurants downtown.
We've, there's so much has changed since last time.
Festival holds got a new roof.
Yeah.
So when you think about look at all the things
that have changed for the better since then.
So if people want to come out of town,
they get new hotels to stay out now.
Which is really, which is really nice too.
So you can make a whole weekend out of it.
Yeah, that's going to be a big benefit.
But a little bit more on the sponsorships.
We do have the flagship stage naming sponsors sold.
We have the VIP loan sponsors sold.
But we are looking for the naming sponsor.
And Don, back in that when we were talking about
the previous hardware fest that was called
Piggly Wiggly Harbor Fest.
Yeah.
So we're still looking for a naming sponsor for the event.
And then we have the second stage as well.
And then there's a number of smaller sponsorships available
that we talk about.
We call it support or scene and things like that.
So we certainly would be interested in talking to anybody
that would be interested in sponsoring the event.
Hello, saying guys, we're talking to Mark Whitenberg
and Gary Suco from the new Harbor Fest,
which is expected to start on June 13th
to 14th, Father's Day weekend and Flag Day in 721 at WRGN.
I guess Mark Whitenberg and Gary Suco,
the hero of the folks who got together one day
and said, what about Harbor Fest?
Well, I wanted to put that together.
And here it is coming up in a couple of months,
six and a half months from now.
Hard to believe, you know, Don, you mentioned bands
and what we're doing and while we're not ready to divulge
who we've got.
They don't have a signature yet.
No, we don't.
And we're still, again, waiting for some of the big sponsors
to come in and support us.
But what we are doing is in our first year
because we're really trying to do this
at the lowest possible cost to give us success
because we're committed for the long term.
It is we're really focusing right now
on really popular local and regional bands.
So we want some local flavor and some local talent
as well as we've looked at ethnic music also
because we have a large ethnic crowd in the Racine area.
So we're pretty excited about our current list
assuming we can get them all signed.
Let me give out some information here.
If you want to be a volunteer or you want to be a sponsor,
you can go to RacineHarbourFest.com
or email contact at RacineHarbourFest.com.
You'll like it.
You got that handle there, RacineHarbourFest.com.
It's not like anybody else would have taken it.
Yeah, the only thing we're missing is the naming rates
right in front of that.
And that's what the tickets and brochures
and everything would say once we signed a naming sponsor
like it used to be back in the day,
Pigley Wiggly Harbor Fest.
We will be adding that right in front of the Racine Harbor Fest.
Pigley Wiggly, the first supermarket in America.
That's correct.
Yeah, they started the whole thing of supermarkets
before that, this local grocery stores,
you know, a little bodegos you go into.
Okay, so let's do a quick review here
when I make sure we get all everything in here.
You guys got together, RacineHarbourFest.com.
Is 5K events involved in this at all?
Or are they just the hosting it?
Is that how that works?
Yeah, well, 5K events is really the people
who manage Festival Hall for a second.
They did a great job coming back
and putting this before that, it was kind of languishing.
I'll tell you something,
these people at 5K events are really doing a great job
at revitalizing Festival Hall and Memorial Hall.
Yeah, our journey in this Don is quite interesting.
We met with the people who were managing it to begin with
and we stopped and we said,
we're not doing any further until we meet with the mayor
and the city officials and gain support for this event.
And what we learned there was that they were looking at
going with 5K.
After that, shortly after that,
we met with 5K and they were super excited about us
and really rolled out the carpet
and did a lot of special things
to make it easy for us to say yes.
So we agree with you.
They brought a new flavor.
They're cleaning up Festival Hall.
They're gonna make it look beautiful with flowers
and landscaping.
And if you mentioned this earlier,
the venue there is absolutely spectacular
right on Lake Michigan.
So we know we have the right ingredients here.
We just need to be able to make it happen.
Too bad, you're not here Friday.
You know, we'll be here this Friday, the mayor.
It'll be sitting in your chair.
Oh, well, say hello to him.
He's a big part of why we move forward.
Yeah, well, we'll mention that.
The Mayor Cory Mason is.
He'll be in the here on Friday.
We'll mention that.
Okay, so this is definitely gonna happen, right?
Well, I don't know about definitely.
We still need more sponsors,
but right now it's on course to happen
and a final, final decision will be made very soon.
But we do need more sponsors at this point.
Well, I'm booking my weekend for that weekend,
so it's gotta happen now.
Once I put it in my phone as a calendar date,
and it's done.
It's in stone.
I can't get it out.
It's gonna remind me about it.
I want to give everybody those addresses again
for more information on how to become a volunteer or sponsor.
Go to receneharberfest.com, receneharberfest.com,
Harper's H-A-R-B-O-R.
And I mention that because I had a shopping center
in my house that spelled it B-O-U-R.
So, yeah, they spelled it both ways.
So you want to do H-A-R-B-O-R.
So we're seeing harberfest.com,
where you can email the guy,
it's a contact at receneharberfest.com,
contact at receneharberfest.com.
If I email you now, who's phone's gonna go off?
Well, it actually comes all three of us.
All three of us.
Jeff, Mark and myself.
I was gonna email him, see who's phone started lighting up.
And say, hey, listen, I got $100,000.
I don't know what to do with it.
What do you want me to do with this money?
And there's so many big businesses
that would benefit from this in town.
So it's worth it to become a sponsor
because there's gonna be so many people there.
It's gonna be packed.
You got a whole father's day weekend
and you've got flag day.
And it's just like the first festival of the summer.
Kick off to the summer.
You know, one of the things about it.
You're missing summer by it one week.
I know.
One of the things down that you,
we didn't get a chance to talk about during this
was the food.
Well, it's a music festival,
but it's also about food.
And we're lucky enough to have Jeff Marsh
from Charcoal Grill be a part of our work.
He's one of our sponsors.
He's one of our committee people.
And Jeff is also going to have his charcoal grill restaurants.
That's where I go for ribs.
You got it.
And they'll be there along with some of the best food trucks
in the South East Wisconsin areas.
So we'll have food, beverage, merchandise.
We have a lot planned for people to come out
and enjoy harbor fest.
You know, that's something that wasn't around
the first time food trucks, right?
It's so easy to bring a restaurant in now
because you don't have to set up a kitchen
to drive in the food truck and everything's there.
We're gonna have a number of them.
But Mark, I think if you could take a second
just to talk about the nonprofit part of the our plans.
Yeah, we just decided to be a non-do this for not profit
and minimum 15% of our net proceeds or profit
will go to local charities.
And we have selected Racine Food Bank as one of the charities.
And we're in the process right now
of vetting three other ones that we're looking at.
We want to select two to begin with.
And so part of our effort is really truly
to give back the profit from this to local charities
and the community that need help.
I just want to skip winter and get right to this.
Yeah, totally.
I want to figure out snow and cold weather.
I just want to get right to this.
Guys, thanks for coming out this morning.
Mark Wittenberg and Gary Sukko, two of the guys
getting together to bring back Racine Harbor Fest
and the dates 10 of the Vlee.
Well, this is not stone, but it's pretty,
the cement is hardening as we talk.
That's what it's that way.
June 13th and 14th at Festival Park.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
I can't wait.
Because I want to get started right now.
Don't thank you very much for having us on today.
Now, I'm just going to mention two words.
Taylor Swift.
No, see what you can do.
Hey, thanks guys for coming out of there.
Appreciate it.