After making the tough decision to cancel the World Dairy Expo in 2020, the event is back in full force at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.
A lot of time and effort goes into planning an event of this scale. “World Dairy Expo planning really is a year-round process. There are ten full-time staff members for the expo and all we do is plan the expo, with a couple of caveats along the way,” WDE Communications Manager Katie Schmitt explained. “When you think about the size and scope of our event, we’re talking about 2,500 cattle out in the show, there are 650 commercial exhibitors…all of those big pieces, the educational components of the expo, they take time to contract, to plan. So really, we get through this year’s event and we start planning for next year’s event almost right away.”
This event is a huge deal to Dane County because it brings so many visitors to the area, which brings in a significant amount of revenue to businesses throughout the county. Based on room nights, restaurant usage, and other purchases in Dane County, they estimate that the event had an economic impact of about $25 million in 2019. That’s why it was such a big deal in early spring of this year when WDE was very transparent in sharing that they were looking at other venues to host the event because they weren’t sure what would be happening in Dane County due to the pandemic. Even though WDE was founded at the Alliant Energy Center in 1967 and has always been there, they had to keep their options open.
“This has been our home since day one…After the 2020 cancellation though, we needed to do our due diligence as a business and as an organization to make sure we were doing everything possible to meet the needs of our stakeholders. So we began looking at different opportunities in case things were in not a good place in Dane County,” Schmitt said. Once that news was made public, Dance County offered up a contract to WDE in hopes to keep them in Madison. The suggested contract includes compensation for any losses due to the expo being canceled last year and hosting the next two years at no cost to WDE.
In an interview earlier this year, Schmitt explained that the decision to keep the event in Madison for 2021 had nothing to do with the proposed contract. “We are staying in Madison and that decision really was based on conversations that we were having and the assurance that we have in regards to how we can hold our event in Madison, and really not taking into consideration that contract extension that was proposed by Dane County…”
Schmitt said that when they were looking for other venues to host the event, they did find a couple that would work, but ultimately decided to keep the event in Madison. “Luckily, it was determined that we could move forward here. I don’t think we ever wanted to leave. This is our home, this is where the facility knows us, we know the facility,” she said. As of yesterday (September 29th), Schmitt explained that the contract is still in the negotiation process and has not been signed. This means that the World Dairy Expo could possibly still move to a different location in the coming years. Hopefully, the dairy show stays in the dairy state, but they aren’t held down to Wisconsin until the contract would be formally signed by the organization.
This year’s expo runs through October 2nd at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. You can check out the complete schedule of events for the expo on their website and you can also hear the full interview with Katie Schmitt on our agriculture podcast page.
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