MILWAUKEE — Festa Italiana will be back at Maier Festival Park for the first time in years, and German Fest lands on the busiest weekend in Milwaukee this summer. These storylines shared among many at the City of Festivals launch event this week, celebrating the start of festival season in Milwaukee.
“Tourism is essential to our season, and the festivals are a large part of that,” said Visit Milwaukee’s Peggy Williams Smith on kicking off the event at the Italian Community Center. “Taken together, our festivals generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact for Milwaukee,” Willams Smith added.
The biggest change for Milwaukee World Festival Inc. this season is the return of Festa Italiana to the Summerfest grounds.
“Many things brought us back to the grounds,” said Sandy Winard, Executive Director of Festa.
As Festa struggled post-COVID, organizers staged a scaled-back version of the festival on the ICC property but wanted to stage a bigger party once again.
“Yes, people thought it was very quaint, you know, very intimate,” Winard said of the smaller events, “…but this is not what Festa Italiana should be. We want to share our experience with Italian food and wine with as many people as possible.”
Festa Italiana will come up quickly. Instead of its traditional July date, the festival will stage on a smaller footprint of the Summerfest grounds from May 31 to June 2. German Fest finds itself this year falling on the most jam-packed weekend of the Milwaukee summer.
“It’s going to be exciting. Lot’s going on,” said Deb Wolf, Vice President of German Fest.
The same weekend, Harley-Davidson hosts its now annual Homecoming festivities that include a huge stage at Veterans Park just north of Maier Festival Park. On top of that, it’s the Milwaukee Air & Water show the same weekend.
“Hopefully it will help us on Sunday because that usually seems to be our slower day”, Wolf said. She is hoping out-of-town visitors might grab a brat and a beer at German Fest before heading home.
For a full list of events this season, click here.
