Rain comes down in Northeast Wisconsin on Memorial Day weekend. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Memorial Day weekend is typically the kick-off for summer. And typically, that means big crowds.
“Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are usually pretty busy with all the people that are in town and have the weekend off,” says Ed Converse, a bartender with Badger State Brewing.
The brewery’s holiday weekend plans, especially their plan for outdoor live music, had to be adjusted thanks to the onslaught of rain over the last few days.
“We have some contingency plans to make adjustments, especially with the concert, we want to make sure everybody is dry, ready for it, so we moved everybody in here, moved the concert in here, it was pretty last minute but it worked out just fine for us,” Converse says.
Although the weekend wasn’t a washout, they’re hoping next year’s summer kick-off weekend is even better. “We actually did a lot better than we anticipated with the storms and stuff,” he adds. While it didn’t have a major impact, for other businesses, the rain just meant there weren’t quite as many customers coming through the doors this weekend.
“The weather did not help us but it didn’t hurt us dramatically either, Saturday was a decent day, not as busy as a typical Saturday but [Monday] was not a bad day at all,” says Scott Kraft, who owns Titletown Brewing in downtown Green Bay.
Kraft says some years they won’t open for Memorial Day itself, but this year they found live music and knew other spots in town wouldn’t be open, so they decided to welcome people in for the holiday.
“If we had nicer weather, we would’ve had bigger crowds out here on a Sunday being on a weekend or a holiday weekend, but it wasn’t terrible,” he adds.
The rain also had an impact on local events, too. Celebrate De Pere is the largest Memorial Day event in the area, and organizers were forced to cancel this year’s popular fireworks display on Sunday night due to continuous rain.
But all that rain was actually a good thing for some local businesses. “When it rains, people come out, so I’d say this weekend is quite a bit better than normal Memorial Day weekends,” says Matt Zeitler, whose family runs the De Pere Cinema.
For them, rainy days are good for business. “When it was really nice Saturday, we weren’t real busy,” he says, “But then we had to get extra people on Sunday especially because of the rain, it pretty much rained all day Sunday, and even earlier [Monday] the weather wasn’t great, and that just makes a huge difference. We probably weren’t expecting to be crazy busy especially with Celebrate De Pere going on just a couple blocks away, so the rain definitely helps us a ton.”
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