And welcome back.
It is mornings with Pat Crite Law on 98.9 WXCO online at wxco.fm mobile devices and Alexa by searching WXCO and on the Civic Media app.
It is our WXCO morning report.
I am Chad Holmes along with Ian Welsh.
And it's good to see across the table again, the executive director of the Grand Theater of Wausau and the Wausau Performing Arts Foundation, Sean Wright.
Sean, great to see you again.
Yeah, good morning.
Good to see you.
Again, it's the middle of July and it just continues to roll for you and everybody at the Grand.
I guess before we start talking again about what's going on specifically now, we've been talking in the last month or so about the launch for the new season, continuing to get a
lot of phone
calls
and visitors.
Yeah, been a great response to the season.
Almost 1,000 subscriber accounts, which is really fantastic.
And we've got some shows.
You know, the Righteous Brothers, Cirque Musica Holiday, as well as Hotel California, the Plastic Albums Live show, all of those and the Oak Ridge Boys, Holiday Farewell Tour as well.
all of those shows trending towards sell out as well as some others that are tickets are beginning to get a little limited.
So it's, it's great to see that that's really, it's really nice in July to be able to put out the low ticket alert for shows in, you know, November, December, March.
It's funny that last week I was on vacation in Vegas and I flew into the airport and I'm on a shuttle to get to my hotel and going through, you know, some part of Las Vegas and there's this massive billboard
for the righteous brothers.
And, you know, they're having a three day engagement in Vegas, but it's like massive billboard, I think.
And yeah, same thing.
Don't have to leave Wausau for something
like that.
You don't leave Wausau.
No, and this is, you know, this is the farewell tour.
Obviously, you know, Bill Medley is in his 80s at this point can still sing, but a little tired of the touring life.
And so, yeah, they are, they've had a sort of longstanding Vegas residency.
He and Bucky heard, but they are, they're calling it quits across.
the board.
I guess after, I think, 50-some-odd years that Bill Medley's been out there, I guess he's earned his retirement.
It's great.
Again, just a little off-tangent.
I like on YouTube, and I watch these old Smothers Brothers shows, and they had Bill Medley on in
the
late 60s when he actually was solo for a short
period of time.
He
went away, and I'm watching this.
I'm thinking, man, this is just amazing that this guy, back in the, before I was born, and I'm not a young guy,
And yet this he's gone out and you know what do you talk to a lot of these artists?
Life on the road is not all that easy.
It is not easy, you know, and you're it's you know, it's hard to your your home is a tour bus and a hotel room and You know every night whether you
feel like it, you've got a different audience that has paid to show up and see you perform.
And yeah, a lot of artists can make a really nice living, a lot of artists struggle, but it is not an easy life.
But I have to say that, what you were mentioning with Bill Medley, that was one of those moments a couple of years ago when we had the show for the first time.
You know, you're walking backstage and you're doing the like, hey, thanks for coming.
Pleasure having you.
And he says, you know, hi, I'm Bill Medley in this, of course, I'm not going to even try to attempt in his Bill Medley voice.
Right.
And you had that moment of like, oh, wow.
Like that, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't matter.
You're 70 at that time.
He was 78, 79, 82 now, but he.
Sounds exactly like he did when he was on the Smothers Brothers in the 60s.
And you just go, oh, wow.
And you go through those, I imagine, these moments.
Because we all see these performers, whether it's on TV or hear them on the radio or whatever.
And then they have those moments.
And you've been through it so many times, I'm sure.
But it's still special,
isn't it?
Yeah, it still is special.
And it's especially great when you have artists who just are
you know, fantastic to deal with and appreciative of it.
And, you know, and every artist is different.
They're, you know, they're at work.
And so at times you have some who are just very professional and that's fine with us.
But it's nice to have the interactions with the people who are, you know, truly, you can tell they truly enjoy what they're doing.
They enjoy the opportunity to perform and they enjoy the work that goes in, you know, behind the scenes that from their crew and our crew and, you know, our operations team and, you know, a show just doesn't.
pop up on stage, you know, and Bill Medley or whoever the artist is doesn't just walk out and perform without hours of preparation on all sides for a lot of people who aren't going to be out there to take the ballast at the end of the night.
That's an interesting aspect of live performance because 98% of the time you go to a show and everything, this works.
Sure.
Whether it's the lighting, whether it's the microphones, whether it's the performers, but
Boy, it's not as easy as they make it look.
No, no.
And, you know, and then you run into things.
Our, you know, our friends at the Overture Center this week lost a performance of Wicked because they didn't have any running water in the building.
Oh, geez.
And I, I've.
saw that last night and had a flashback to a time when I was running an arena in Birmingham, Alabama, and we had Davidson and Steph Curry for a sold out, well, Statue of Limitations has passed now, well beyond sold out game.
And yeah, we had the exact same thing happen late in the second half.
So that was a fun time to explain to fans why the restaurants were closed as they were leaving the building and to explain to the Davidson team why.
We can take you over to this building next door if you'd like to shower after the game.
I'll say that's my thing.
I helped.
lead Steph Curry to the showers.
That's my claim to fame.
It sounds very strange, but you know.
One of those before they were truly
famous.
I mean he was already famous.
I know he was, but
not to the level that he ultimately has been able to get to with the Warriors.
No, but it just says, you know, things happen.
Things happen, things happen, and you know, and you know, we've had shows with, you know, just recently, you know, show a power outage downtown a couple hours before and how do you prepare and how do you adjust, you know.
at the show with the tornado warning.
I mean, that's what I mean.
And those are, you know, everybody can point out those nights and go, oh, wow, you know, you put it together.
But really just on a night to night basis, the decisions that have to be made and, you know, the, you know, when the tour comes in a little late and you have to keep them happier at the last minute.
And, you know, this happens.
We had an artist last year who literally on the day of said, oh, did we not tell you we've got three members whose birthdays are this week.
So we'd like a custom made
birthday cake with dinner tonight you're like it is 10 a.m.
and I don't really have time to go home and beg so as talented as you are I'm
sure you could pull it off
nobody wants nobody wants that
and we'll have more with Sean Wright executive director of the Grand Theater coming up at 752 right here on 98.9 WXCO
It is mornings with Pat Crite-Loa, 98.9 of UXEL, and continuing our WASA Morning Report, Chad Holmes, along with the executive director of the Grand Theater of WASA and WASA Performing Arts Foundation, Sean Wright.
You mentioned earlier about the more than a thousand subscribers already for the coming year.
And of course, the capacity at the Grand again is... Is 12.08.
I was thinking, you know, when you said that, you know, we're just at the end of another season.
What's the percentage of filling the seats this past year?
Yeah.
Do you have that?
This year, this year, we were at about 980 so per performance.
So, you know, 86, 87% capacity, which is pretty amazing, you know, for us.
And, you know, the best thing is our.
you know, our drop count.
So the actual people in the seats, not just ticket buyers, settled in the low 90s, because that includes, you know, of course, we do have, you know, we've come up tickets, we've sponsors who we work with, we have our access for all series and things like that.
And, you know, really in this industry that
drop count is the thing that you focus on.
I mean, it's no different than when you watch, you know, Major League Baseball and the Cardinals announced 33,000 as attendance and you're looking at and going, I can count to 10,000 and that's all that's there.
And so that number, you know, at bottomed out in the first year, back after the pandemic, we were, we and everybody else were, you know, in the 80 percentile, people just weren't coming out.
And, you know, in this year, we were, you know, we were back up at 91, 92 percent of the tickets that were out and, you know, so much.
is even higher than that.
Let's talk about what's been going on.
Anything special been going
on?
Yeah, we had a fantastic show last Friday night with Olcrow Medicine Show.
Those guys are just, you know, it makes me feel very old that Wagon Wheel is 20-something years old.
Of course, their massive hit that's now been redone by Darius Rucker and everybody under the sun, but those guys were just absolute pros and, you know, great to deal with and just put on a fantastic show.
So that was a
We only do a handful of shows during the summer, but we try to really make them count.
We've got the nitty-gritty dirt band coming up on Friday night.
And it's basically a sold-out show for their farewell.
And then later, the summer, Straight No Chaser with their boy bands of the 90s, Part Two, and of course, Jacob Dillon and the Wallflower.
purposely lots of things to do outdoors lots of festivals lots of everything so we try and pick and choose our spots but really excited by you know those shows that we have on the summer schedule that
is amazing that a show in July indoors in central Wisconsin you can almost sell out or
sell out exactly and you know in part that that's you know the dirt bands been doing forever and this is their farewell tour and I appreciate that they're you know a lot of these bands just come out and basically say oh we're gonna do an endless farewell tour nitty gritty basically came out and
said, this is going to be a two to three year, maybe four year farewell tour.
But our whole point is we are playing every market that we've played that wants us back, that we can go back one time.
And so, you know, they've just sort of made their way through.
And so this is their time to, you know, to hit here.
And I think they're over in Door County as well.
And so I appreciate that, that artists realize, you know, they trust me.
With the tickets they're selling on this tour, they didn't have to come to the grand.
They could have said, oh, let's go back to Milwaukee for the second time.
But they really made a point of wanting to go into all these venues and communities that have supported them over 50 plus years of the dirt band.
Fantastic.
And also people have choices when it comes to.
What they support in terms of you know whether it's charity or whether it's just something they want to you know provide support for and one thing that of course You're getting wonderful support with but also you're still working towards is the the 100th anniversary project.
Yeah, our second century campaign We just had you know meeting with our architects and contractors yesterday and you know looking at you know May 11th of next year to be here before we know it the will shut the doors and start you know phase one of that work and
It's exciting to think and we have raised over $13 million of the 17.
plus million dollar project.
But obviously that still leaves a $4 million gap that we need to make up.
And so we encourage people to jump online, learn more.
We'll have some events coming up in the fall that people can learn more.
All the materials, we're being very transparent as to what the campaign is, what we're doing, here are the costs, here's why we're doing this.
And it's going to be exciting.
It is really a lot of fun to be at the point where we're looking specifically at the seats.
the details of the seat.
Okay, where does the cup holder go?
Where does the donor plaque go?
What color is the fabric?
And those things.
gonna be a great moment for our theater, for the entire block, and for the community as well.
Absolutely, and again, I saw a message on this earlier this week on your Facebook page, and there's a link where you can get so much information about the entire second century campaign.
Just go to grandtheater.org slash second century, or just go to grandtheater.org, and you'll be able to
find it.
You can find
it from there.
And again, I'm very fortunate to work here in downtown Wasa, and having the grant here in downtown Wasa is such a
I mean there's so many great aspects of downtown but boy the grand is one of the top because it just adds so much energy I can be here on a you know during the
Well, on a Wednesday night and I have to tell my guests for the high school show that maybe a hard time finding parking spots because there's a big show at the Grand.
So much energy that's brought in with these performances.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, that's that's the great thing.
There's, you know, there's so many wonderful things that happen in the downtown and, you know, with the work that's going on.
But, you know, a Monday night in February could be a little slow.
And that's that's where we step in and get folks downtown and, you know, to patronize the businesses and, you know, stay in the hotel.
and not just local folks, it's folks from throughout our 19 county radius and up into the UP of Michigan and beyond.
And that's something that we hear time and again from artists and attendees that part of the reason that they love coming here is because it's not just the grand, there's this entire great downtown in this community and things to do as well beyond just seeing a show.
So there's plenty of folks to do and starting off by going to grandtheater.org.
Get those tickets for upcoming shows, get more information on the second century campaign and a whole bunch more.
All the important things in one place, and you can even find my email if you want to harass me about Cardinals performance.
Have you baked a cake?
No.
Certain things not available.
Sean, it's always good to see you.
Great to be here.
We'll take a timeout.
Be back with more.
In fact, coming up at eight o'clock here in Just Mirror Moments, we will have another information update with news, weather, sports, and then after that, I will be a guest on Pat Critello with Pat coming up along with Brittany Merlot talking about the weather at 8.06.
So keep it right here.
Brittany, myself and Pat Critello all coming up after the information update on 98.9 WXCO.
Good morning and again, everyone.
The time is 822.
It is a much more pleasant morning here in North Central Wisconsin after some very sticky.
This starts to our days, the last couple of days.
Are we okay?
You have a look on your face like we're having a problem.
Sorry, we just have a little bit of an echo in here.
Do I need to reset?
Probably, I think
so.
Let me startle again again.
I'm gonna get out of here and Ian was alive
Okay, let's see
Ian talk we're on the air do something.
Sorry about that.
Let me just see When the weather outside is actually
Pretty good right now.
Now it's a few clouds in the sky and the temperature is actually a very Very nice.
It was easier to fall asleep to last night.
I guess it was in the upper 50s and you wake up in the morning.
It's It's actually pretty comfortable Waking up as well They were saying that the temperature is gonna be in the
eye.
I know what we're doing wrong.
I know what we're doing wrong
I was still on my... I have a different setup when I go out with Pat.
Oh yeah.
I have this little mini board that I connect with with Pat Crite Low.
And I forgot to take off those headphones and put on my...
regular headphones and get back on the microphone.
It's like, you know, I was on the path the last segment.
So now we should be okay.
Do we sound okay now?
It's not a lot better now.
It's all good now.
All right.
There you go.
Things happen.
I know, I know.
I, I, I just, uh, you know, the mind sometimes does, does not work properly, but.
Again, as I was saying, it's a really beautiful morning here in North Central Wisconsin.
The last couple of days was so warm and sticky this early in the morning.
It was like, you know, in the seventies, but also the relative humidity was up in the 85 to 90% range the last couple of days.
But here today, just refreshing the temperature, much cooler.
Yeah, 54 degrees here in downtown Wausau at the corner of Washington Street and North Third Street in downtown Wausau.
Of course.
says, well, we have the humidity.
It still is kind of.
up a little bit at 80%, but just because the temperature's down, the dew point is also down, so it doesn't feel so much better.
There's a bit of a drencher starting yesterday afternoon.
Again, we had plenty of rain and during the last segment, started off with Brittany talking about the weather and talking about the fact that a lot of folks are going to the EAA coming up next week in Oshkosh, talking about the potential maybe of some rain early next week.
bring an umbrella and I was gonna pipe in there and I couldn't get in there.
I was gonna say also make sure, because of all this moisture, to bring the insect repellent.
Mosquito repellent because I learned my lesson and I saw these bumps all over my body from a Tuesday night when I was doing the softball game at Sunnyvale Where I did not have any repellent so the bugs said hey here's lunch and here's dinner But so if you're heading out and there's gonna be some rain in a forecast Make sure as well because of all that moisture this summer that the bugs are out there in big force Hey, how are you doing this
morning?
The weather is not as hot as it has been and the continued rehearsals for Shakespeare have been going very, very well.
The last night's rehearsal was a lot of fun.
We were making each other laugh and all the laughter that we had last night, it really helped to loosen us up and help and have more fun with our...
parts and just overall the Show itself is coming along very nicely.
Very good.
And when again is the show?
Oh Shows will be a August 14th 15th and a 16th at a steward park in downtown Warsaw and those shows will be at a six in the
evening Month away, so it's coming up quicker and quicker
And again, that's something that's really interesting.
We see productions going on with your group and we see other groups.
There's a group from the Stevens Point area that is putting on a production.
We'll be talking about soon as well with guests here on the program.
So even, and we heard from Sean Wright earlier this morning, they still have shows, not more on the musical variety right now, but there's still entertainment that has been brought to you by the
The Grand Theater and the Performing Arts Foundation.
So even though we're in the summer where we think a lot about outdoor activities, there are still plenty of opportunities to see different kinds of artistic productions as
well.
Yeah, a theater is a year round activity.
There's always something going on in every type of season.
We're getting closer and closer, of course, to the Wisconsin Valley Fair as well.
I mean, there's still so many different ways to enjoy the summer.
Time flies.
I mean you look at the calendar.
We're past the midway point of July Yeah, so it's you know a little bit more than a month before the school starts again and Football season gets underway again.
In fact, that's right.
And actually this
weekend.
It's sort of the unofficial start of high school football because the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association holds their All-Star Games in Oshkosh this weekend.
The eight-player All-Star Game is Friday night and our good friend and the head coach of the Newman Cardinals, Paul Mickley, is the head coach of one of the teams at the eight-player All-Star Game.
In fact, tomorrow night, I'm going to head on over to Oshkosh and see Coach Mickley and Coach Thorpe and a couple of the Newman seniors.
who are part of that all-star team and there'll be an action and then other of our area athletes will be involved in the 11 player all-star games coming up on Saturday the small school and the large school all-star games so again lots of football this weekend and one of the things that's always interesting this time of year you're always hoping it's not too hot but tomorrow night it's actually supposed to be like in the low 70s and
Sunny skies so not bad not bad at all So we're gonna wish our luck to all of our area student athletes who get a one more chance to put on their high school Helmets and perform in these all-star games this weekend You know have this topic for the number for the day coming up later, but we'll be back at 8.52
Welcome back.
It is mornings with packed right low on 98.9 WXO online at WXO dot FM mobile devices and Alexa by searching WXO and on the civic media app.
The time is 8.52.
Again, a very pleasant start here in North Central Wisconsin.
Much
more comfortable start temperatures in the mid fifties and expected to get into the Lord of middle seventies before all is said and done today.
Uh, coming up in just a few minutes, we'll have our number for the day quiz and Ian just for your for a few minutes for you to stew on it.
The, uh, topic will be Wisconsin heat.
Wisconsin Heat.
Wisconsin Heat.
So think about that and we'll have that number for the day coming up in just a couple of minutes.
Sounds good.
Wanted to remind folks that today you have an opportunity to let your congressman know what you think.
There is a little bit of good trouble going on in Wausau today at Tom Tiffany's office.
It's called the Tom Tiffany Betrays Wisconsin Rally.
I like the name I like the name
According to a press release, Tom Tiffany knowingly voted for a bill that he knows will threaten basic health and food support for our most vulnerable neighbors.
These cuts will further force even more people into crisis and increase costs for everyone through rising healthcare prices and economic instability.
We must come together and say no to these cruel and dangerous policies.
Toxic Tom thinks this big, beautiful bill is wonderful.
Despite all your calls and letters, it's big.
and it's ugly.
So today come on out to rally at Tom Tiffany's Wausau office.
The Tom Tiffany Betrays Wisconsin rally today from noon until 1 30 p.m.
at 26 20 Stuart Avenue in Wausau.
Please
Park in the strip mall parking lot behind the u.s.
Bank parking lot again, so There were some areas where sprinklers were turned on to try to keep folks away so So we may want to wear a rain slicker if if you're in the area where those sprinklers are so but again today from noon till 1 30 at 26 20 Stewart Avenue was Tom Tiffany betrays Wisconsin rally
Also this evening there's an opportunity at the Marathon County Public Library to talk about Fair Maps.
There's a Fair Maps community hearing at the Wasa Branch of the Marathon County Public Library tonight at 6 p.m.
because again the vital importance of knowing
what to do in terms of making sure that your legislators know what you're thinking in terms of fair maps and just a chance to talk about some ideas on legislation and what's been worked on.
It is a program that's sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Marathon County.
And again, it's at six o'clock at the Marathon County Public Library.
So a couple of opportunities to let your voice be heard in our democracy.
And there's one thing I wanted to mention real quickly this morning.
Yeah a rescission bill has passed the Senate and Once it passes the House as expected the corporation for public broadcasting budget will be zeroed out zeroed out for the first time since 1967 and I was talking about this with pack right low in our first segment and back in the late 60s when there was controversy about
funding for public broadcasting.
There was a hearing where Senator John Pastore, who was a clown to be blunt with you, who tried to make his hay by trying to clean up television and be this moral arbiter of what's going on.
Well, he held a hearing and he was basically out there saying he was not going to give a dime to public broadcasting.
But then Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers,
spoke and He was so good in what he said The senator pastore said dog on it You just got your money because mr. Rogers was so good and just last month I again watched the documentary won't you be my neighbor the life story of mr. Rogers And they showed that
clip.
Yeah, and I remember that clip
the idea of what Republicans are doing right now
What they're doing is actually gonna hurt many of their own voters Because many of the voters for the Republicans are in rural areas.
I think a lot of the culture wars have been because I got people on the conservative side but this funding keeps a lot of public television and radio stations on the air in rural areas that the areas that need this broadcasting that's right, so
I just think this is an outrage and this morning another step forward and that's one reason why people like Tom Tiffany need to hear from the people.
Absolutely.
Because what they have been passing first in the big beautiful bill and now something like this when it comes to public broadcasting, poll after poll after poll shows that the American people do not agree with a lot of these policies when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to public broadcasting, so many other areas.
People are getting
very upset by this.
But they keep on passing them.
So again,
You have to let your voice be heard and again be out at Tom Tiffany's office today on Stewart Avenue from noon until 1 30 p.m.
And be mindful the sprinklers to
there you go Let's go to our number for the day quiz a chance for you to clinch a winning week.
You're two for three so far.
Yes, I am Wisconsin heat Wisconsin heat.
So our number for the day is The hottest temperature ever recorded in Wisconsin history ever recorded
Okay.
So the hottest temperature ever recorded in Wisconsin history, I'll give you a little information.
Okay.
It occurred on July 13th, 1936 in Wisconsin Dells.
So the record has stood for nearly 90 years.
Okay.
All right.
Your choices are 109 degrees, 114 degrees, 119 degrees.
Well the
choices is one more time
again 109 114 and 119 No, I'm
gonna say Well my god here, I'm gonna say 114 114 is my final answer
the hottest temperature ever recorded in Wisconsin history is 114 degrees Three out of four you are red hot this week
You're gonna try for an A grade tomorrow.
Oh, yeah.
Have a great rest of your day.
You too, Chad.
Happy Thursday, everybody.
And everybody stick around.
Coming up after an information update, it's Matt and Aaron Ayer here on 98.9 WXCO.
