Summer event requests signal a return to normal

By KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM

Ozaukee Press staff

Port Washington is preparing for a return to a more normal summer, with reservations for the city’s parks flowing in for the season and event applications coming in.

City Clerk Susan Westerbeke, who handles applications for a variety of events in the city, told the Common Council early in May that she had already received applications for seven events scheduled for June.

“It’s going to be a busy season,” she told aldermen, noting that she’s been getting a lot of calls from people interested in hosting events. “This is a vast change from last year.’

Westerbeke said she gets calls “consistently” about potential events and dates, noting many of those calls are from civic groups who were forced to cancel their fundraising events last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and hope to revive them this year. “This is important to them.

“People are pretty excited. Hopefully we stay on that trajectory of improvement. That will be great for everybody.”

Among the June events she’s received applications for are the Harborview 8k bike ride on June 12, Be3’s Cheers to Dad beer garden on June 20, the United Performing Arts Fund Ride for the Arts on June 27 and the Port Main Street Inc. farmers markets, which run on Saturdays from June 19 to Oct. 23.

Park rentals are flooding in as well, Recreation Director Kiley Schulte said.

“We’re really getting really, really booked up, especially Upper Lake Park, Veterans Park, Coal Dock Park,” Schulte said. “For sure — last year, it was slim pickings but this year renting a park is a pretty positive thing.

“We are definitely going back to more of the normal things.”

She said park rentals aren’t just for community events, but for private events as well.

“We’re getting tons of weddings, graduation parties and birthday parties,” Schulte said. “I think right now, renting a park is a pretty positive thing when you don’t have to clean your house, you’re outside and you don’t have to worry about Covid. It’s really useful for families.”

Schulte noted that 2018 “was one of our hottest years, one of the biggest on record.”

Last year there weren’t too many rentals, she said, but this year public and private events are back on, including Port City Band concerts, the Harborview 8k and the city beer gardens.

Westerbeke noted that many organizations have asked about hosting events in mid to late summer, even into September, but a few groups that had started out looking for a later date have now moved up their events.

“A lot of these decisions have to be made so far in advance. They’re just doing what they have to,” she said.

But many events will still be altered this year in light of the pandemic.

For example, the UPAF Ride For the Arts, which has run its route through Port Washington for years, is holding a special event at Coal Dock Park on June 27.

Last fall, organizers decided that in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic “a normal event of 4,000 people at the lakefront isn’t going to be feasible,” Karie Korek, a senior public relations specialist with UPAF, said. 

They didn’t want to hold an online event so they decided to create a Ride for the Arts series, three bike rides held in June with cyclists choosing a route on their own ending at a “reward station,” where they will enjoy music and pick up a prize package.

Coal Dock Park is the last of the three rides, Korek said, a location selected in part because there are a significant number of UPAF patrons who live in Ozaukee County and the organization has a number of affiliate entities near the county.

“We wanted to go where there is interest, where we’ve gotten riders from before,” she said.