History
Other than one notable weekend in August (Bratwurst Day) and an active charter fishing fleet, Sheboygan wasn’t on anyone’s map in terms of tourism; Kohler was and Elkhart Lake was, there is no question about that, but as for Sheboygan, well, it was too quiet. But then in the late 1980s and early 1990s things began to change. Kohler tourism took off. The American Club was remodeled and the first golf course built.
In the early 1990s—prodded by City Developer Bob Peterson and the Sheboygan Development Corporation (an organization of private city businessmen and industrialists)—the city began to wake up to the tourism potential of the area. The Lakefront Development began and the marina was built. With golfers playing an elite course and many of them staying at an exclusive resort, and boaters in yachts and cruisers coming to our city, the face of Sheboygan changed: classy restaurants emerged; and so did Riverfront boutiques.
However, this transformation needed to be developed. Bratwurst and fish were still a part of it, true, but we were beginning to receive a much more upscale visitor. “Rust Belt” was beginning to disappear from descriptions of our area and our subtle change became less subtle when the John Michael Kohler Arts Center launched an expansion that resulted in a truly exceptional venue. In fact, its aggressive visual and performing arts programming attained a level that remains as prominent as any other in the state.
It is a fact that we’ve always had high quality, local performing arts—the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra and the Sheboygan Theatre Company especially, which have enjoyed a stellar reputation. But they and the others pretty much played to a local audience. The Arts Center changed that.
I was heading up city tourism at this time and I wanted to capitalize on this momentous change and get these performing and visual arts groups together to see if we couldn’t form an organization to promote, develop and coordinate cultural tourism in Sheboygan.
So the Sheboygan Convention and Visitors Bureau sent out a letter on March 26, 1999:
“The Sheboygan Convention and Visitors Bureau is in the process of organizing an Arts Board, which will stand as a subcommittee of the CVB’s Advisory Board.
Our goal is to have representation from every group in the area that is involved in cultural events: music, drama and exhibits. The purpose of this Board is to help facilitate the coordination of the many and varied performances and exhibits in the area.
The steps we envision taking to implement this goal are to:
1) Gather a complete list of cultural events.
Why: a) To help promote the events by printing an inclusive calendar
b) To avoid conflicts for groups considering a new event.
c) To avoid conflicts in hotels and other facilities’ bookings.
2) As the Board develops, we will help facilitate events.
By: a) Serving as one clearing house to obtain corporate sponsorships.
b) Coordinating the groups that can help provide manpower and
expertise in their “off” seasons to those groups that are putting
on events.
c) Assisting with local, state and regional promotion through media
public relations and advertising coordination.
Our hope is to have all of the area’s cultural entities represented. In addition to benefiting from steps 1 and 2 above, the members will be invited to send a representative to our organizational sessions to help develop and refine the Board’s operating procedures and rules.
Representatives may attend subsequent meetings and may be elected to the Board’s governing board, one member of which will be designated to serve on the Convention and visitors Bureau Advisory Board.
Please complete and return the enclosed form by May 3 to be represented at the Board’s first general meeting, tentatively scheduled for May 25, 1999.”
We had a few meetings, but it didn’t work. It was a little too early. The groups were still very protective of their “turf” and mistrustful of the idea that we would all benefit—as would related tourism entities like restaurants and hotels—by working together to build up and coordinate the cultural offerings of our city while promoting each other. And so, the CVB’s Arts Board of 1999 fizzled after a couple meetings.
However, soon another factor entered the picture. A group began renovating The Sheboygan Theatre. It would eventually become the Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts. Its onset re-arranged the playing field. Now there was real competition. The Weill Center would be bringing in shows that could definitely impact the show-going public. The arts organizations began to wonder, “There is a heavy schedule of performances; there is only so much in the family’s entertainment budget, there are only so many nights in a week. How is that going to affect our ticket sales?” The appeal of an organization that might work toward alleviating some of these fears once again became a viable consideration. The CVB tried again on March 3, 2003.
“Dear Friend in the Performing Arts:
Several years ago we tried to organize an Arts Board consisting of representatives from Sheboygan County visual and performing arts as well as humanities organizations. The intended purpose of the group was to establish a line of communication that would create networking opportunities, create an avenue for cross-marketing, and create a forum to clear schedules to avoid performances on conflicting dates to as great an extent as possible. For a number of contributing reasons, the organization did not work. We did manage to organize a schedule, but that was about all we were able to produce.
Cultural tourism has become a notable player in our Sheboygan County tourism mix and I would like to try to reorganize that group, particularly those on the performing arts side. I think that the people saw little value in meeting since their main concern was to promote their exhibition schedules and that could be and still can be done without regular meetings. I think, however, that we could do a better job of promoting the performing groups if we met regularly, perhaps quarterly, to discuss coordinating schedules in advance to minimize conflicting dates and themes, mutual problems, how we can gain by pooling marketing concepts and dollars to stretch our advertising budgets and perhaps, how we can work together to create conferences, seminars and other events that might benefit our common cause.
What do you think? Is your group interested in participating? If so, please complete the enclosed form and return it by March 24 so that I can assess the potential of re-establishing the group. The term Arts Board frightens me some. It sounds too formal, too governing. I’m not so sure that is what I’m envisioning here and I don’t want anybody to be hesitant because of that concept. I see a more co-operative, intermingling group as opposed to a Board. If there is enough interest, we can determine our name when we determine our mission and direction.
Thank you,
Denny Moyer, Manager
Convention and Visitors Bureau”
It worked. We had our meetings and we began a relationship. This time around it seemed that the distrust, wariness and—in some cases—even animosity seemed to disappear. The group began to come together in a new spirit of cooperation.
We completed a few simple projects, too. The performing arts calendar became a reality and was sent out with every visitor inquiry. We staffed the County Fair, promoting the arts. Following the enthusiastic leadership of Charlie Krebs, we got together for a united television commercial. We worked with the Arts Center to sponsor a seminar with state arts groups and were ecstatic over a grant from the Kohler Foundation that enabled us to bring in a gentleman named Mitch Swain, who headed a Pittsburgh arts coalition. His presentation truly fired up our organization. Everybody seemed to have a better vision of what could be done if we worked together.
All in all, I must candidly admit that as much as I talked about and supported the development of the arts, the development of the arts as a tourism attraction was always in the back of my mind. The cultural side of Sheboygan is worthy of touting as a tourism attraction and I still don’t feel that it is getting the kind of promotion it deserves.