Tomah Chamber & Visitors Center Newsletter August Newsletter 2019 | Page 12

August 24, 2019
What a great summer!
Welcome to the halfway point of our Downtown Thursday
Nights concert series! I can’t believe we’ve made it through
our first three weeks! So many people have been asking me
questions about this event, it’s conception and the planning
that I thought it was easier to write this letter and share our
story and our dream.
Let’s begin with “I can be talked in to some crazy stuff ”. I be-
lieve it was November of last year when we were approached
to put together a six week concert series. The gentleman
whom we’re working with had set up similar programs in
other states, and wanted to bring their work to Wisconsin.
At that time, I felt as though we already had enough work on
our plates, but my staff member, Shay Jilek, with a wild spark
in her eye, insisted that I consider it. I posed the discussion
to an Executive Board member, Jeff Cram. Always seeing
the “bigger picture”, Jeff ’s influence and those discussions
led to dreams and the dreams led to us putting on a six week
concert series. It all sounds so simple as I type out these few
sentences.
This has been anything but simple!
K. Sterling & the 85Silver Band open at 4PM
SuperTuesday takes the stage at 7PM
Early bird Tickets $10 or $15 cash only day of event
tickets can be purchased online at
Tomahwisconsin.com or in person at:
All American Do-It Center in Tomah,
Am-Fam Insurance-Jeremy Haldeman Agency,
Timberwood Bank, Tomah Cash Store & Vino Anjo
Must be age 21 or older to attend this event
Proudly brought to you by:
Tomah
Norwalk
Tomah Nursing
& Rehab
Our first order of business was to define our purpose. Why
would we put on this event? Our immediate motivation was
to use this as an economic driver for our community. We
wanted to be able to bring more attention and foot traffic to
our downtown, because after all, a strong downtown is a key
component to a healthy community. Our vision included
uniting businesses and non-profits towards this common
goal and to make this a true community effort. We felt that
Tomah has put significant investment into forming the
Downtown Master Plan, developing TID 8, and updating the
streetlights (coming soon)! We felt if we built this event in
downtown, many community groups could embrace it and
find a way to grow through the event.
We wanted to close down a city street in the downtown, so
we immediately began scoping out locations. We assessed
every block of the downtown corridor. Then we asked many
of the City of Tomah’s department heads to sit with us and
discuss the options and if the possibility of this event was
even feasible. Each department embraced the concept and
pledged to work with us to make the event possible. It was
Tomah’s Police Chief, Mark Nicolson, who suggested we
hold the event on the 800 block of Superior, right in front of
the police station.
At the time, we were surprised with the suggestion. The mere
suggestion seemed like something that would take the event
to the next level of extraordinary. Closing down Superior
Avenue could make the event so noticeable that it could be
bigger than we originally dreamt it could be, but closing Su-
perior at this particular spot gave the event stability. Having
the event in front of the police station would help us to mit-
igate possible over-drinking (who is going to over drink in
front of the police station?). This also meant we had access
to adequate parking, event overflow space (the parking lot
south of the police station) and power sources. Also, since
we identified early on that the purpose of this event was to
spur economic development, it made sense to give a nod to
the largest economic investment in Tomah’s downtown: the
3rd Gen “Tee Pee Building” project. Our committee felt that
their investment in turning a blighted property into a beau-
tiful destination was an important part of our downtown’s
story. Our goal is to expand and we hope that every business
finds a way to embrace the event and find a way to showcase
their business at it. Enter the Break Room and Chad Mad-
son. When Chad heard about our event and the location,
he had some good questions so came to us directly to ask
them. He then thought of ways he could use the event to his
advantage. Not only did he decide to sponsor the event and
sell food at it, but also to use it to drive more business to his
restaurant. I applaud you, Chad! Thank you for seeing our
vision and working with us to embrace it!
We knew we needed food at the event and began to ap-
proach our local restaurants to give them all the first op-
portunity to sell food. Not all of our local food vendors had
the equipment or resources to make it possible, so we began
reaching out to some food trucks in order to supply the
eatery demands we anticipated. The mix of local and outside
options has been well received by attendees!
Despite our best laid out plans, this event hasn’t gone off
without certain hitches. We learned in the first two weeks
that the bounce houses were understaffed. While our
contract with the company did state they would be staffed,
it wasn’t to a level that could keep up with the demand. We
have mitigated that by hiring a team to help monitor their
usage and keep up with the excitement of all the kiddos.
We also ran into some issues with having enough electric-
ity. Chris Dawley quickly became our “Knight in Shining
Armor” on several occasions. He enlisted the help of Ryan
Storkel who saved the day several times! When I say that this
event is truly the creation of the Tomah community, I am
referring to these guys and so many others who stepped up
when needed to make things happen!