Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this May 27th, 2025. Have your host, James
Danemail off here. Welcome in to the studio. Our great friend, Promise Bach, and from the
Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce. Promise always good to see how you're doing.
Good morning. How are you doing? Well, thanks for asking. Do you have a good weekend?
Do you have a good weekend all of them? Yeah. Yeah. Good. I'm trying to think of like, if
I was putting you on the spot there, and I'd ask you that question. I didn't mean to or anything,
but it was a fun week and hopefully for everybody out there. Yeah. And we've got fun weeks coming up
here, Promise, because one of our signature events, our favorite events in this area,
and most consistent events, because this has been going on a long time. Lunch by the River is
kicking off on June 5th. Yeah. Lunch by the River starts on June 5th. So this is a community event
where we kind of gather some food trucks and some entertainment and head on down to the Veterans
Memorial Park here in Wisconsin Rapids from 11.30 to 1pm. And we just kind of have some food,
have some sponsor booths out there. You can stop by and check those out. And they most likely
have like little swag there that you can grab too. And then you know, watch some of the entertainment
during your lunch break. There are lots of people that attend this event. It's one of the great,
the biggest ones that we have like the most people that frequent it. And it's just such a great
event. Promise, this is something that you know, the community certainly comes in droves and shows
up for this one. Every year I've lived in this town. I've seen this event. I've never seen a
unpopular Thursday down at Veterans Park. Everyone. And I say that in part because we all know
Wisconsin weather. And even in drizzly days or days, it is not the nicest out or something. It's
still just tons of people down there. And also to that point, you guys get booked for this pretty
early as far as food trucks or entertainment, a lot of the things that want to come down there.
Yeah, we definitely do. We have the whole summer already booked for this year. And we've already
got a list started for next year. So every year we look for sponsors to sponsor the days down there.
So if you're a sponsor, you get to set up a little booth and showcase what your company has to
offer and get in front of like mass amount of people just like in one day in a couple of hour
periods there. And then we also have a variety of food trucks and some of that food down there on
those days can be pretty amazing. I brought up the, you know, the fact that this is so popular
and that you guys have this book so early to speak to businesses out there of the, not only the
popularity of this event, but the missed opportunity you could be having by sponsoring, by being a part
of this event and everything. It's one thing to have people, you know, eyeballs pulled away from
something else to come to your location. With this, they're already there. So you're just meeting
them there. You're meeting them more than halfway. You're meeting them on their turf, which
just somebody who study a lot of advertising and marketing and a lot of those things,
that's where things tend to stay with people so much more. That's why commercials at home on your
TV are so much more successful than they are in your laptop or some of those things. There's a lot
more to that. But when it comes to you businesses out there being a part at lunch by the river,
it's, I don't know and I'm not even going to ask or get into it or anything as far as what it would
cost, but I guarantee you it doubles that with the amount of eyeballs that are going to be down there
and seeing it. That's business 101 and that's a really great opportunity along with all that.
Also showing the community, hey, I support the chamber. I support my community. I love to be a part
of these events. I want to come on down. Let's have some fun. Yeah. Definitely gives you the
opportunity to connect face to face with potential clients and customers. And it also helps like
that word of mouth advertising is the best type of advertising there is on there or anywhere actually.
So yeah, definitely if you're interested in sponsoring next year, reach out to us. We are
getting that list ready. And you guys are booked entertainment-wise too? For this year, yes.
Good, good. I only ask because of my band with my fur dog brother and all that. We're trying to
get as many opportunities as we can. We're a young band just starting out. We do acoustic instruments,
air instruments really. Sam doesn't really play anything. He's just kind of barks. But one day,
we're going to get our first gig and it won't be at lunch by the river though. Maybe a couple
years down the line, we're better. Gathered by the band shell is coming up. Looking forward to
this one. It's another one of those signature events, especially in its area and how much we get to
when we get to do this and have fun with this one. Yeah. So gather by the band shell is once a month.
So this year, it starts on June 10th from 5.30 to 7 p.m. out at the Rome town band shell. And this
is a kind of like a microversion of the lunch by the river. I would say we have food trucks down
there. We have entertainment down there. And then I know we all are planning on having like games
out there for the kiddos this year. I know we started that last year and it went off really well.
And there's a couple of other things that we're trying to look at expanding this one because it
is in the Rome center and it's so new. Yet for us that we just thought maybe we can grow it a little
bit more and make it a little bit more family friendly. So you can bring your friends down there too.
Your kids down there. And then it's just a great way to just kind of relax after a long work day.
Just go down to the band shell, have some food and have some entertainment and catch up with
your friends while the kids play with our games that we have down there. So that area is only getting
bigger and stronger over their economically. It's a smart event to have and it's a fun event to
have. And I like to encourage people in that area view of ideas or thoughts. Please reach out to
the chamber, let them know and stuff your things. They all want to make it stronger and better every
chance they get. Yeah. So this one happens once a month. So once in June, once in July and once
in August, and it's always going to be the first Tuesday of the month. And promise, I don't know,
you know, I know it's been a while, I should say, since we've talked about this, but I think the
audience has heard me ramble quite a bit about Riverside Park and Nicoside. It's one of my favorite
places in this whole state. I love that area over there. And having an event with that area is
just perfect. It's a match, which is a perfect match. And rendezvous in the park is coming up.
Yeah, rendezvous in the park is actually out at the Riverside Park and Nicoside. And so this one
starts on June 18th. It's very similar together by the ban shell. We have food trucks down there.
We'll have entertainment down there from 5.30 pm to 7 pm. It's free to attend. So you can bring
your kids out there to this one as well. It's, I will say it's one of the one of my favorite
places to walk just along the river there and everything. That alone is a good time.
Let alone when all this stuff comes down there. And it's such a, it's such a will spread out park
that it gives, it's perfectly made for events like this. So it's going to be another great one.
We'll be talking about all of these events all summer long as we get closer and closer to them.
And be sure to remind you on our morning shows and stuff about these events when they're going on.
We're speaking with Promise from the Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce. And it is a just,
I don't know if this is the busiest time of year for you guys, but it's got to be pretty close.
Especially with everything, if we just ended the interview right now, it'd be that way.
But then we've got Cranberry Blossom Festival coming up along with the vendor fair coming up.
And I know busy that keeps you guys in a good way.
Yeah. So the Cranberry Blossom Festival vendor fair this year, it's back down town, Wisconsin
Rapids on West Grand Avenue. It's June 21st from 10 am to 3 pm. There will be vendor booths,
food trucks down there. We're going to have a few new vendors down there. So it's definitely
going to be worth coming down to check out. We are still looking for vendor booths.
And we have a couple of spots left open for food trucks. But vendor booths, they're filling up
pretty fast here. So I think that we wanted to expand it a little bit this year. And we've already
almost reached like the halfway capacity on that one. So if you're interested in being a vendor
down at downtown, not downtown, Cranberry Blossom Festival, understandable. I get call letters
wrong every day. Don't worry about it. But yeah, it's great. First off, that's great to hear
that it's so well, you know, attended and used and everything. And it's a great opportunity.
We know how popular the vendor, how many vendors we have in this community and this area and
stuff, whether it's our farmers markets or something like this, any chance to be able to highlight
them is always noteworthy and great. And that's a really, really cool idea too, especially
again, some of the other things we talked about all in one spot, all, you know, in that one area
that you get to check all these out. Yep, no, yep. I totally agree with you. This one is one of the,
the most, I would say people really like this one a lot because you get to come out and walk
down the street and check out all the vendor booths and, you know, even get started on some of your
Christmas shopping there. You never really know what kind of cool things you're going to pick up
while you're at these vendor fairs. I love that aspect of it. And again, one of those great
events that brings the community together and gives people an opportunity to maybe see their,
get their things seen that might not otherwise. A lot of people make a consistency out of going
to the market, winter farmers market and the summer market. But maybe you don't get to places with
vendors a lot. I actually ran into an interesting conversation the other day with a younger person
where they did not know what a swap meet was and something like that. It was a whole liver. I'm like,
all right, well, we're going to talk, we're going to have a conversation here. You got to hear
about this. cranberry blossom festival parade is coming up June 22nd promises. This is where we wrap
up. Yeah. So cranberry blossom festival parade this year is on June 22nd from 12 p.m. to roughly
1.30 p.m. This year we are encouraging that parade entries decorate their floats to the
belast from the past theme. And I'm very curious to see how that is going to be interpreted,
especially with the variety of floats that we have. It will be interesting to see how they
applied that theme to theirs. The registration for floats is now open. And I think we have quite a
handful of those already secured too for lineup. So if you're interested in being in the parade or
have a float in the parade, reach out to Lacey Elling at 715-422-4859 or check out our website.
We have all those forms out on our website too. And promise as far as the cranberry blossom festival
vendor fare, they should reach out to Lacey as well for that. Yep. And again, Lacey can be
reached at 715-422-4859-422-4859. As we get closer to a lot of these events, we'll be talking
more about them of course. But for now, just appreciate the time and being able to bring all this
together into the conversation promise. If people have follow up questions, they want to know more
from you or just reach out in general. How can they get in the hold of you? They can give me a call
at 715-422-4856 or shoot me an email at marketing at WisconsinRapidsChamber.com.
And it cannot encourage you enough if you haven't done so already. Go to WisconsinRapidsChamber.com,
bookmark their webpage. It's not only got all the things we were talking about today, but so much
more. This is also a great resource for workforce, for economic development. A lot of great things
on that website. You guys do a great job with that thing and that's awesome. Be sure to bookmark
that and follow the chamber on social media. Maybe you're already a chamber member or maybe you're
not a business. You're just a person out there listening and I like to be a part of the chamber.
I'm not a business. But you can support the chamber by sharing their posts on your page and
so many other things that show your support for this community.
Promise they had the team for us over there, okay? We'll talk again soon.
And thank you all for joining the conversation here on WFHR's Rapids Report.
