Extraordinary Business

Yesterday was the Wings & Wheels Blues Festival in Reedsburg, WI. While the weather that day started out a little rough, it gradually improved as the day went along. What could have been a dreary day finished with Westside Andy playing under the stars to a crowd of about 2500.

Over the past year I have been working with the Reedsburg Area Chamber of Commerce to plan and carry out this event. We had seen success with Corvette shows I brought to the area and now were trying a new spin. It seems as though we have found the formula that works here.

Small towns continually struggle when it comes to attracting revenue for growth. It appears the grass is greener in larger metropolitan areas. Many local residents shop the bigger cities because there is more to offer. Towns that are able to attract dollars through either tourism or business growth have found a niche that they fill.

Reedsburg's story actually began over three years ago when I shared with them the vision of bringing several hundred Corvettes to their downtown. After a couple meetings with the chamber director we agreed that Corvettes were the right thing for this small town. Though it met with resistance, and at times we even wondered if we would ever pull it off, but we did. In 2004, we drew about 300 Corvettes to a closed off section of Downtown Reedsburg. The event drew thousands. The following year we made more space, and cars still overflowed into parking off site. We had about twice as many people attend as the year before.

Though the Corvette show ended, the spirit of doing something different did not. I was commissioned by the chamber to help them figure out what that was. Ultimately, the choice was to put together a music festival. We chose to keep a car theme as part of the event. This eventually grew to include motorcycles and planes as the idea came to be.

Even with past success, we were at times met with pessimism and resistance. Some people couldn't understand why we would pick something other than country while others felt the event would fail to attract anyone. Though the challenges were tough, a small but determined group moved on to make Wings & Wheels a reality. That hard work wrapped up at 11:00 PM yesterday evening with the event paid for and cash in the bank for doing it again in 2007. We learned a lot from the first year including that optimism and thinking differently can create something.

So if you are faced with the same challenges of economic development in your town, take a look and see what you can offer that no one else does. We have a number of bluesfests in the area. We chose to act different and create something that would be about more than just music and appeal to all ages and demographics. The formula worked. Find the formula that's right for you.

Congratulations to all who participated in the creation of this event and thank you to all who attended. We look forward to seeing you next year!