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THE ‘BLOW AWAY’ VENETIAN FEST
The Lake Geneva Jaycee’s 60th Annual Venetian Fest started its annual build-in for the celebration on Monday, August 15th. It all begins Wednesday, August 17th, and runs through Sunday, August 21, Lake Geneva’s Flat Iron Park, Seminary Park, and Library Park will be full of family fun festival activities, all assembled by the Jaycees to celebrate this growing Wisconsin presentation.
The gates will open on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and run through the evenings until 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, the festivities will stay open a bit later, closing at 11:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday things will start at noon and close at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10:30 p.m. on Sunday.
Mr. Ed’s Magical Midway will be in full swing in Flat Iron Park and Seminary Park (a very short walk to the east from Flat Iron) with great rides and games for all ages. The food vendors will be scattered through both parks for all your favorite carnival foods. The beer tent and stage will be rocking throughout the entire five-day festival. On Saturday and Sunday Library Park will join the event with the Annual Art and Craft Fair.
Over one hundred vendors will fill that park, adding a little more variety to the festival. On Sunday the festival will wrap things up in a big way with, Bill Harfmann’s wonderful and exciting water Ski Show, a lighted boat parade, and the biggest firework show Venetian Fest has ever put on (which will also be the largest ever presented on Geneva Lake by anybody).
With Venetian Fest starting this week Lake Geneva has been busy prepping for the crowds. The Lake Geneva public works department has its parking lot full, providing a home base for all the carnival vendors’ equipment, trailers, and campers. With the public works parking lot busy the brush drop-off will be closed and will reopen after the lot is cleared. Barricades closing Wrigley Drive are in place and will be until Venetian concludes on Sunday.
The businesses are also looking forward to the crowds that will venture from the festival and check out their shops and the locals living in the area are getting ready for the traffic that will be even thicker than on a typically busy weekend in the city. With Wriggly Drive closed, Center Street, between Main Street and Wriggly Drive, there will likely be stand-still traffic almost consistently throughout the five-day festival. The local boat launch on Wrigley Drive is located on the edge of the festival and will be closed for the five-day event to avoid any additional congestion.
With the heavy traffic and limited parking, the city will be offering a free shuttle service that will run every twenty minutes. Parking and pick-up for the shuttle will be at the Home Depot Parking lot and the city lot on Edwards Boulevard. The shuttles will drop off at the US Bank on Center Street centrally located for the downtown and festival fun. The only flea in the parking shuttle ‘ointment’ is timing. The shuttles will only run on the weekend, not during the weekdays, which might be just as busy as that banner weekend.
The Jaycee’s Venetian Fest has grown in size and importance, as the years have gone by. The small ‘niche-like’ park at the edge of Geneva Lake has allowed this entertainment venue to take advantage of the fact that when attending it, no matter how many people are jammed together, it seems very homey, small and comforting to be there. This fest is also ‘free’ to attend. The rides cost real money, although the cost of these rides is nothing close to what the larger county and state fairs charge. The food is the typical ‘food truck’ kind of stuff. The best part of the food is the lemonade served up in Seminary Park from one of the purveyors located in a specialized motor-home kind of vehicle. The teriyaki served by volunteers from the American Legion is also really terrific.
Parking is the biggest issue, as the fest has grown in popularity, and along with parking problems have come the difficulties in getting around in vehicles that are driving constantly in search of a nearby spot. Use the shuttles, as this resolves the problem, and the two to three-block walk isn’t much of a walk at all. The real special deal will be the entirely free huge fireworks display, set above the calming smooth waters of Geneva Lake as evening sets in on Sunday.
