Madcity Party Bus arrives on Max Ink Radio with owner George Chaconas

you found Wisconsin's local music authority. This is MagSync Radio. We are local music.

My name is Ronker here in the studio with Jane. That's right.

Over in the control room. And we are also here with George Chaconis from Mad City Party bus and

Mad, a Mad City limo. And let's take a ride on the Mad City Party bus founded in 2006. Mad City

limo has provided transportation services for events as small as a special date night or big

night out on the town. Mad City limo has a diverse fleet of vehicles and here to talk about his

Madison based company is local entrepreneur George Chaconis. George, welcome to MagSync Radio.

Thank you. Good to be here. Hey, did you leave a bus full of people parked out on the

bus? Thank you, Bob. We're always around this area. Are they out there in the barrel right now,

party event? You know, George, before we hear about your amazing limo service, tell us a little

about yourself. What's your backstory? Well, I came up here in 1988 to go to college, play

little ball in Wisconsin. Remember, we do have a football team here. Oh, yeah. We're Chicago suburbs.

Oh, what's up? Uh, Niles area right right by O'Hare over there. All my families in Glenview and

Silvia. Nice. Oh, yeah. Um, and I fell in love with the summers. Got a little job after

I graduated. I'm like, well, why am I rushing to move back when this is just a great place to be

in the summer and, you know, live music all the time, union and then the lake swarm enough to

go swimming because people just bolt in in May. Yeah. And leave. And I'm like, well, this is a great

place. I got a apartment, got a job. I just had a fun time. And that's what made me stay.

This is a great place. And then, and then at some point, you decided to become an entrepreneur.

What started you? What inspired you to start Mad City limo and Mad City party bus?

Friends just couldn't find transportation to parties. Simple as that. So one thing we learned

in Wisconsin, people love the drink. Yeah. And they want to play listen to music. So, wow,

let's have a fun vehicle that has it. Now, back when I first started, the philosophy was, well,

sports is big. So let's put a bus like a satellite TV, uh, beer,

cagerator, refrigerators. Yeah. That was thrown in. And then, of course, the stripper pole, right?

So the three big, most popular things that everyone just love. And then everyone started

booking and booking this little bus that my friend put together for me because I had this little idea.

How many people have that one? Uh, only like 14. Only 14. And then some guy comes up to me. Yeah.

Some guy comes out to me and says, oh, can we use your bus for a wedding? I'm like, oh, I

don't even think about. I just thought of friends and party and getting make a few bucks. And I drive

and it's all great. And then I'm like, well, maybe I can get a bigger bus and do like weddings. And

that's when I got a bigger bus. It started doing weddings. So you're the original driver, right?

Original driver, correct. How many drivers do you have now? We got about 10, uh, five full

timers, five part timers. Wow. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty cool. Uh, it's baseball season again.

What do you have going on with brewers games? I imagine people want to, they want to go to the

brewers, but they don't want to drive home. Correct. So what we love in Wisconsin, when your sports

teams are successful, your packers, brewers and bucks, everything wants to go. Brewers are

amazing team this year. And we love the new, the stadium because there's a roof on it. So

there never be a rain out. So the game will always be played. So when we take due that hour and

half drive for Madison, we're going to park. Maybe it's raining, but they're going to go inside

the stadium. But people just want to take a group corporate stuff during the week, bachelor parties,

bachelor ed parties will go into the bus parking. They'll do some light tailgating. Watch all the

shenanigans, especially when Cub fans come up when they play the Cubs. This is a crazy parking lot

experience. Hey, good bye. Right. So, uh, it's the shenanigans in the parking lot. Then they go

to the game and they basically try to walk out back to the bus. What's it, what's it like with

these guys out in the way home? It's mixed. The good thing about a big like our 20 passenger

parking bus and when everyone's walking over, then there's like one or two people they're looking

for. They can't find in the, you know, cell phones and oh my god, so and so's on the other side

of the stadium. They don't remember where the bus was and like, all right, we'll swing around and

get them. So that's typical. We understand what's going to happen. I'm standing in front of a car.

That happens a lot at these big games. You know, even their friends are like trying to find them

and coordinate them and it's like, oh my god, let me just go and get them. Yeah. The bus is

we're all waiting for you. So that happens a lot. Uh, prom, graduation, weddings. I'm seeing a

pattern here. Uh, starting young, keeping these customers all the way through their life cycle.

Tell us about your services. So we have prom seasons kicking off in middle of April. We get calls

on Saturdays for the stretch limo that holds eight passengers. They love that kid. Yeah. Go out,

go to dinner, hang out the window, hang out in the window, take pictures at the Capitol, the union,

up there. I'm a known a terrorist and then go drop them off at their high school for the dance

and then their parents kind of get them home after that. Yeah. So it's like a four-hour usually

people book from like four to eight or three to seven and it's it's fun. They pick a dinner place

and or they get in the party bus. Now you have like groups of like, you know, couples,

12 couples and up 24 passengers. Same thing. We're just going to drive around. They're going to

listen to their music. Have a good time. The drivers will go deaf after we're done. The music is

so loud. Yeah. It is crazy loud. That's why I'm getting old now. I can tell I'm getting old and

music. That's the statement, isn't it? How many vehicles do you have? You have a big fleet.

Yeah. We've grown. So we got four party buses from a 16 passenger to a 26 passenger.

And by the way, people out there, they don't make like 40 passenger party buses. Everyone

like, oh, can we get a bus? Usually 25, 26 of the largest with the with the limo style seating.

After that, it's going to be yeah, after that's going to be forward facing seating. So then we

got those big shuttle buses for wedding guests up to like 36, 38 people and smaller like SUVs and

stuff. So we we try to accompany accommodate everyone we can get. I like the stretches. They're

my favorite. It's old school. People still like them. Proms go crazy. Forms don't know. Oh,

that is so fun. You know, we have to ask you if you have a story about famous comedians and limos.

Right. So we do car service and actually we do a lot of car service for the comedy club below

with the audience every they come in every week flying and then we take them back. So a few years

ago, Dave Chappelle was in town. It was the most unique thing that we had to provide because

this was weird. So the writer, you know, in their contract, it was at the legendary Van Halen,

no brown M&Ms and green green green. It was brown. Okay. It was brown. Yeah, that was for safety

reasons. Yeah, she's a trivia. Oh, okay. So Dave Chappelle had to be able to smoke in the hotel

at the edgewater in the venue at the Orphium and in our vehicles. No one's ever done it. But

by the way, back in the day, everyone was smoking. I'd love to write, but not anymore. You can't

smoke anywhere. So the fire marshal provides something for them. He had a whole floor at the edgewater.

And then I said to myself, okay, so a whole floor, a whole floor because he had a smoke. Right.

And then I had, we had to decide, okay, so if he smokes, you know, people are going to get upset.

They smoke smoke, but I'm like, oh, come on. It's a five minute ride from the edgewater to the back

at the Orphium. Right. Actually, we're kind of above it almost right here. Yeah. So how bad is it

going to be? So we had him for three nights in a row. So the first two nights after the

council, he just went out crazy in town and we drove him around, picked up, he picked up some

friends and brought him back. I have quotes around. Yeah, quotes. So the last night, a Sunday,

I drove. So I parked down to the edgewater. I'm like, okay, they said Dave will come from the other

side from the old part of the edgewater. Then all of a sudden, it's dark and I see this guy walking

towards me in these gray sweats with one pant leg rolled up. And I'm like, oh, that's Dave

Chappelle, just in these gray sweats. And I'm like, well, he's got wardrobe and it's going to change.

No, that was his outfit. He wore on stage was the gray sweats with his one leg rolled up. That

was it is like, well, is he going to put down this the leg that's rolled up? That's this thing.

He just does whatever he wants to do. Then he put like $200 right in my shirt pocket. And

wow, I stayed right behind the orphan watch the show and you got back and went out and partied.

And just amazing guy, really nice guy smoking maybe three or four puffs and he's dropped off. So

that was an issue. He's, oh, he smoked every second of that concert. He was just puffing it up.

Oh, I'm like, Andrew does clay. Yeah, Andrew Geist clay. He was just a big smoker. It's amazing.

Wow. Yeah, not anymore, huh? Not anymore. Probably. Those were the days. Well, how do we find out

more about man city limo and the man pray party party party bus? So our website, of course,

is madcitypartybus.com for all the fun crazy stuff, bachelor at bachelor parties. Now when we started,

when I started mad city party bus 20 years ago, I was a lot of corporate people stayed away from us

because of the word party bus. So I just came up with mad city limo. They didn't associate right

with the party bus through their corporate events and their clients. So then I just put together

the mad city limo. It was more corporate friendly. Yeah. In your face, party. Okay, we can take

your client from the airport and stuff. So madcitylimo.com is more of a corporate service, car service,

shelling around airports and whatever you need in the madcityparty bus.com is more of the fun wild.

Are you trying to tell me that the corporate people don't get the one with the stripper poll?

That's correct. And by the way, going forward, all insurance companies, no more stripper polls.

They will not underwrite any companies anymore. Just too many injuries and liabilities.

Oh, yeah. No more. You won't find people. Everybody thinks they're in pro. Yeah. That's, that's,

that is the problem. People that are on the stripper poll should have been on the stripper poll.

I think that's almost always the case, don't you think? Right. Wow. What an incredible experience.

What's coming up for for you guys? Anything more vehicles, planes, what are you going to do?

We're, we're, we're looking in the summer. A lot of people need to go to a hair in big groups.

So we need, with a lot of luggage, best of problem. You got, we got a great vehicles, but they can't

hold all those bags. And people have so many big bags now, 50, 40 pounds. It's amazing that you

got to shove all of them and golf clubs. So we need to find a better vehicle and more luggage space

to haul golf clubs and luggagees now. So we'll be getting some more of those. And, you know, we've

got to deal with our problems. And, and, hey, looking for it as bruise season. It's going to be fun.

Ever. It's, it's, it's something that keeps us busy during the week. They're going to win this

here, right? Stay should. Sounds good. George, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with

us tonight. We really appreciate it. Yeah. My pleasure. Shop local, eat local, listen local. This is

maxing radio. We are local music.