Find Out What’s Happening In Racine With Kevin MacDougall

What's happening around town? We're going to find out right now. Kevin McDougal from 5K

events is here with the calendar of events coming to Racine at Festival Hall, Memorial Hall, Festival Park, Rotary Park, the Lakefront, where's that?

That's got to be different matters. Yeah, you gave a Rotary Park an additional name there, Festival Park, but we still call it a festival park, even though Rotary has the has the naming rights they put up the the dough for the big stage so they get the naming rights.

Is that how it happened? Yeah, yeah, so I thought you'd somebody woke up and you know it would be a nice idea. Just give it to him. Yeah, just be nice. It's like Miller Park, you know, American family insurance have been I'd like their commercials and give the stadium.

Yeah, I still still call it Miller Park. I can people some people call it county stadium still. Well, that's that's yeah, that's that's a little too much. The old town was called a county stadium. Yeah, well, the the home plate for health fair field there in the parking lot.

Yeah, that's where the home plate for county stadium was. I remember when they they do that with all stadiums. They did that at Yankee Stadium in the York to when they rebuilt it. They took the parking lot.

Built the stadium and knocked down the stadium. They did it with city field with Shay Stadium used to me. They always do they build it in the parking lot and knock down the stadium and building the parking lot.

I remember when it used to be here. Okay, so I still call it Shay Stadium. Like at city field doesn't mean anything to me.

I mean, is it I've never been there, of course, but so it's it's a completely new stadium, but it's not called Shay anymore. It's called city field. Is that is that accurate?

Shay Stadium, quick little history here when they were the 1964 65 world's fair was built. They built Shay Stadium right next to the world's fair.

Had the same color scheme and everything and it was real convenient because the Long Island Railroad built a spur going off its main path to go to the world's fair.

Okay, and also served the Shay Stadium. So when I see my for that it's season tickets used to go every weekend. Sure.

You know, I was the big kid in the neighborhood with four free tickets every weekend. And we should take it the Long Island Railroad right into Shay Stadium from wherever the problem was we had a change over in woodside

cleans, which is not the greatest neighborhood. So when the game was over at 11 o'clock, we're standing on this train platform. Just you keep an eye out on the left. I'll watch the right.

I can't believe my mother let me go. I was like vigilance 12 13 years old and she's letting me do that. We could do those things then.

Well, all right. So we've got a big event coming up as a matter of fact, we'll give it to you. It's a way to with sham rocks and shenanigans just in time actually before St. Patrick's Day Saturday March 14th.

One to four PM. Let's talk about that. Yeah, this is our our second year doing sham rocks and shenanigans and it is our St. Patrick's Day celebration.

It is a few days before the actual St. Patrick's Day and the way we timed it is.

You know, we open up one o'clock so you can go downtown Racine and see the downtown St. Patrick's Day parade and then come see us.

And then we close at four o'clock so you can still have time to go to your local one days of the parade. It is. Yeah. So that's how we time it.

I didn't put two and two together. Yeah. So we want folks to enjoy downtown Racine as a whole that day. And you know, after you're done seeing us and sampling some great national local

bourbons and hearing some great music from Racine's own Celtic gypsies. You can still go off and to some of your favorite watering holes around downtown and plenty of time to do that.

So, but we've got a great lineup of national local bourbons and whiskies and a lot of other spirits, including some great Irish's red brass.

Jameson will be bringing several different expressions and green spot Irish whiskey as well as some great Wisconsin bourbons from driftless gland and leds rock distillery.

You know, some bourbon from barman bourbon, which is a course product as well as five trails American whiskey, which is another course product five farms Irish cream, which was a great Irish cream sample or last season.

And then a couple of things that are kind of unique. One of our great partners is a sensei, which does the THC infused Celter, which is becoming, you know, a big thing with younger people now as they enter the the drinking culture.

And then our ready to official ready to drink cocktail. We're seeing civic center is car bliss. So they'll be there with a lot of different varieties and flavors and things like that.

So just a whole day of unlimited sampling. Come on in and enjoy St Patrick's day with us.

Nice to live down south. We used to case and drive through Kentucky. And on the interstate, they're so proud of their bourbons. They actually have interstate signs saying this so and so distillery.

Oh, yeah, neck bourbon distillery next right.

Sure. They're actually put up on the highway department. Yeah, it's called the bourbon trail. And it goes from from Lexington into Louisville. So, you know, all the major distilleries are along that trail. And I've been to several of the tours there. And they're really amazing.

Some are in a lot of them are very different. Some of the some of the newer distillers are very modern and unique, but some of the older ones like Jim beam are still very classic and, you know, just kind of the roots of their existence.

So you can go see how all that's made and sample and see how the chemistry of the bourbon industry works, which is really interesting if that's what you're into.

So now I found that interesting the highway department put up those signs.

Oh, yeah, that's huge tourism in Kentucky. That's it. I mean, it's if you go through Kentucky, you will see just all these, you know, lush rolling green hills. They have these large. They're called Rick houses.

And they're spotted all over the landscape. And it's just filled with thousands of barrels of bourbon aging. And that's that's what it is. And they're not climate controlled.

The the bourbon, you know, goes in and out of the wood of the barrels based upon the the temperature. And that's how it gets that nice cream color in the bourbon. And do I work in the bourbon industry?

I drink enough of it. But I've got a good friend of mine who's the director of the Kentucky bourbon festival. So I've kind of got kind of a lot of inside information. So.

You said these are local still areas, right? Yeah. The Driftless Glen is from Baraboo and led rock to still areas from Fondelac, but the others are national.

Okay. I knew I didn't know they made them here. Oh, yeah, Wisconsin has some great distilleries. You know, Jay Henry is a big one. Driftless Glen is another big one. One of my favorites.

A led rock is kind of a unique one that I found just kind of doing some research here around Wisconsin. But there's some other great ones here in Wisconsin.

Yehara Bay, which is outside of Madison also dancing goat, which is outside of Madison. So really just a lot of amazing distilleries here in Wisconsin.

Not only do they just make bourbon, but they do gins and vodka's and you know dancing goat makes a great lemon cello. So there's just so many great things made right here in Wisconsin that you can enjoy.

If you know if you know that type of spirit is is your favorite. So all right. So I like the money part of this now admission sampling. Yeah.

The admission is $45 so that gets you unlimited sampling from one to four. We also have just a general admission. Say if if bourbons and you know spirits aren't your thing, you want to come in and just enjoy the music.

And we've got some green Miller light at the bar and some great Irish beers at the bar. It's just a $10 admission fee for that. So if you want to just come and enjoy the party and not do any of the sampling.

You can come on in and just for $10 and enjoy the music and everything else we have going on that day and those tickets are available at the events page of festivalpark.com.

And I'll tell you that $45 set is a great value. I like to say I've been to a lot of tastings and I've paid a lot more for a lot less. So this is a really great bargain and it's going to be a fun day indoors or outdoors.

It is indoors at festival hall. Oh, okay. So yeah, they don't care about the weather. No.

Snowstorms blizzard. That's not for this particular one. I care about it for our friends with the DRC that are doing the. Oh, yeah, the parade. I care about it for them, but for us, no.

You're not concerned. I still didn't put my snow shovels away and my snowbrush in the next year. I'm not going to do it. I don't want to put the whammy on things because I made the mistake a few weeks ago coming out and saying.

It's springtime at the next day. We had an inch and a half a snow on the ground. Absolutely. My mouth shut. The snow shovels are out there that I'm coming out to the 4th of July. Then they can go in. Yeah.

We're chatting with Kevin McDougall from five K events. We're talking about festival hall Memorial Hall. Rotary Park. I was like a rotary park. You got that in there. Yeah.

Next up is something fascinating. The Racine rendezvous Rubik's cube competition at festival hall. Now I mentioned this because we were watching a YouTube video of this kid.

3.4 seconds solving a Rubik's cube and we saw and do it. Yeah, that's amazing. It wasn't even looking at it.

He just went down and tossed it. 3.4. I can't examine it for at least 20 seconds before I could do anything.

If he gave me to the end of the year, I wouldn't have been able to solve it. I mean, I was just talking with this about this with somebody yesterday and as a matter of fact,

I said the only way I could solve it. If I were peel off the stickers and but apparently you can't even do that anymore. They paint them on.

So cheaters like me wouldn't do that. They paint the colors on the Rubik's cubes now. I don't know how he did it. I don't either.

He just picked up the thing and did it. And it's completely mixed up when he picked it up and steps, steps, steps, steps, done.

And it's not it's not AI. He really did. And he had some real swagger about him, too. He's like, I got this.

So I assume you're not going to have the three point.

I think we're going to have this super star. But I think we're going to have people that aspire to be him. That'll be there. But yeah, that is on July 4th.

And it's the Racine rendezvous. Oh, July 4th is July. I mean, not July 4th. I'm sorry. April 4th. April 4th. Okay. My bad. The Racine rendezvous Rubik's cube competition. That'll be a festival hall.

Yeah, I have to get in. How do you do the competition if you want to be in the competition? That's a good question. I have to find that out for next time around.

We were partnering with our friends at our G babies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

On Main Street and so you can probably get with with Michelle and find that information. All right.

On March 12th, the QuadCon comic and toy show at festival hall. Yeah. I got to stop and slowly say I really do.

This is our fourth year for this. And this has just grown and grown every year. And it is just what it sounds. It's, you know, comic book dealers, collectibles dealers, you know, things like that.

There's even some, you know, comic book artists that have been there in years past. So it is really amazing thing.

And the cosplay aspect of it has really grown the last couple of years too. You know, people dressing like their favorite fantasy character.

Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen that. I've seen that. And they've gotten better and better every year.

So some people are really starting to pay attention and really, really get after it. So.

So I'm going to the movies with my wife and we come out and these kids get out of a car. And I say kids, they were probably about 14, 15 years old.

Yeah. And they're dressed in these outfits. And I forget the movie that was playing. It was Minecraft. Okay.

And they're dressed. And I say, let me guess you're going to see Minecraft. Of course. Yeah. And they were dressed as the characters going into the movie.

Sure. And they were like four of them. And I said, my goodness, what kind of what is this movie? Minecraft. Yeah. And they're dressed as the characters to go watch the movie. Yeah.

I respect a good cosplay. I mean, I've been to some of the big ones in Chicago. I've never, I've never dressed because if I couldn't do it right and do it up good, I wouldn't do it.

But some of these folks really have amazingly elaborate costumes for their characters.

I know. You got a Comic Con. You see the videos on the news and these people walk around and they invest a lot of dough into it.

Yeah. And it's a source of pride for them. It's part of their community. And it's a, it's a, it's a pretty cool thing.

And they probably high powered attorneys. It's some prestigious law probably. And they go like dress like that. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. That's, that's coming up April 12th April 25th. The end of the month. All things kids.

Expo in festival hall. Yeah. And this is our second year for this. This is an event that just is exactly what it sounds. All things kids.

So it's, you know, ways to keep your kids entertained, you know, crafts, educational things.

So it's all, you know, different types of, you know, retailers and organizations that are focused on kids and they're in their

betterment and their well-being. And there's a lot of fun things for kids to do. And we have some great sponsors.

And this is something that is going to continue to grow. Like I said, this is our second year.

We had a great year with it last year, our first year and just took off like we weren't expecting it to.

We're very pleasantly surprised. And so we expect another great event here, you know, coming up toward the end of April.

Let's talk about the huge event coming up this spring. The farmers market.

Yeah. The farmers market is actually going to be the centerpiece of everything we do at at festival park this spring and summer into the fall.

The opening day is Saturday, May 9th. And that will run every, every Saturday for the next for the following 24 weeks from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

through October 24th. So and this is going to be a true farmers market. It's going to be everything has to be freshly grown or made.

No package goods. We're not going to be doing a lot of crafting things like that. No food trucks.

Very different from what happens down at the Kenosha Harbor market, which is amazing in itself and what they do.

But this is going to be a true farmers market. It's not you see farmers markets slapped on so many different things that really don't apply.

But this is going to be a real farmers market. And we're working with all the food share programs, you know, snap, WIC, EBT will have some senior discount programs.

But also a lot of great things for families to do to a lot of kids activities, educational things, demonstrations, sampling will have some live music every week.

So it's going to be a party every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. And really, and we've talked about in visits past some of the things that are unique to downtown

or seen in terms of not unique in a good way in terms of food insecurity and food deserts and things like that.

And that is truly downtown or seen where a lot of the residents don't have the opportunity to, you know, go to a local grocery store and get fresh fruits and vegetables and things like that.

So this is something that that is going to certainly satisfy. And so we're all very excited about that. And we're really looking forward to it.

When I went to the farmers market with my wife, I'm a monument square, they had one. And we found a local honey guy.

And now I go to his house to pick it up in the off months. And it's like a drug deal going down. I pull up in the driveway. He comes out with a bag.

I have my cash in my hand to give me the cash, give me the bag and I pull away. He's my dealer score.

His daughter does the honey. She got the honey bee. Sure. And he was selling it. And it's like a lot of folks in the area that deal going down.

So we'll certainly have a, have a, have a honey provider.

Yeah.

We, we also run while dawn who you've met is our market manager. And we'll have her. And again, real soon.

And she manages the Oak Creek winter market up at the Oak Creek Community Center. And we were there a couple of weeks ago.

My wife and I easily spent $200. I mean, it's not hard to do. But you know, great, great breads and cheeses and pickled items.

And bought some great beef jerky and some great other baked goods, you know, cookies and things like that.

And this is going to be indicative of what we're going to have at the, at our market, a lot of those same vendors are coming to toward us.

Now it's on the grass to festival park.

Well, this will be under in the colonnade. So under the colonnade.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So in another, and I'm glad you brought that up. One of the great aspects of festival park is so much of it is undercover.

So the other vendors will be under the colonnade.

So we don't have to worry about rain too much. We have large event tents. A lot of the demonstrations will be under that.

So, you know, it won't be a day to where if we have a steady rain, you're going to have a wash out.

You know, you're going to be protected from, from the rain. And there's plenty of parking in downtown or scene.

So you don't have to sweat that. And it's, it's something that's going to be a great thing.

And not only for us, but the entire community. So we're really excited about it.

We're very fortunate to have this coming to festival park.

I'm going to get admitted here. Let's talk about Harbor Fest coming up.

Yeah, Harbor Fest coming up June 12th and 13th in their second year of its new incarnation.

Headlined by Bella Cain, some other great acts, Almighty vinyl, the lunch money bullies, weird science.

How about your band?

You know, I'm actually between bands at the moment. So when he was looking for a vocalist, I'm available.

Shame was plugged.

Yeah, exactly. So Kevin at festivalpark.com.

But no, we've, they've got a great lineup of bands. And we're really excited about it.

And this is something that, you know, people had talked about, you know, for years.

The last year of the original Harbor Fest was 2007. So it had been, you know, that long.

And a couple of the guys that, you know, Jeff and Gary are former sponsors of the original Harbor Fest.

So they, they like to tell the story of they were having too many bourbons on Gary's deck one day and decided,

Hey, let's start Harbor Fest again. And that's the way it talks.

Yeah, when they went, they had a few. So they, they got their heads together and came up with it.

And last year was a great year. And we're looking forward to this year being another great year for it.

So, okay, but the big one, Shamrock and shenanigans coming up Saturday, March 14th.

We're going to talk about that in a few minutes because we've got some tickets to give away.

Yeah, the Shamrock and shenanigans coming up Saturday, March 14th at festival hall.

Now, if you missed any of what we're talking about, we'll have a podcast later on this afternoon for you.

So you can hear it all again.

Yep, thank you, Kevin.

Thanks. It's great to be here. See you next month.

You bet. And bring in the young lady here to talk about the farmers market.

Yeah, I will. I'll see Dawn next week and we'll set a time to have her back in and really give you more of the inside scoop of the vendors and everything that we've got coming.

So that sounds good.

Yep.