October 30, 2015 at 2:18 p.m.
Who needs tourism?
Who needs tourism?
Like, should Beef-A-Rama continue to be an event in the Minocqua area? If so, should we keep the event downtown or move it to a different location?
We're not making this up, sad to say. The staff over at the Minocqua chamber apparently received three complaints and thus decided to seriously consider abandoning one of the region's most important tourism events of the year, or so the question implied. They were serious enough to send out a survey to selected area downtown businesses asking those very questions.
It's as if a few complaints would cause officials to seriously consider canceling the Indy 500. Or a handful of grumbles would cause the NFL to think about canceling the Super Bowl, or moving it to a prairie in Nebraska, though that might upset some of the Rodentia there.
Well, Beef-A-Rama is Minocqua's Super Bowl, and to even think about canceling or moving it is beyond the pale of sensibility. What's worse, to send out a survey asking such questions only legitimizes the preposterous notion.
Think about it. The event has been drawing record crowds, ranging between 15,000 and 25,000 people a year, depending upon whose estimates you use. Even at the lower number, and we think it's more, Beef-A-Rama is one of the Midwest's premier attractions.
It brings millions of dollars into not only Minocqua but the entire Lakeland area, helping to fill resorts and other lodging facilities, as well as restaurants and other attractions. More than that, it is a late-September anchor that helps to extend what is a short summer season in the Northwoods.
It's a perfect and necessary complement to the fall colors, giving tourists another thing to do in addition to the scenery. It could well make the difference between visiting the region again in the fall, or just waiting for next summer.
Without the punctuation mark of Beef-A-Rama at the end of our tourism season, the entire year would be left dangling like an incomplete sentence. Yet, far from trying to enhance the opportunities Beef-A-Rama gives us, it seems our local chamber staff wants to simply shutter the town, and especially downtown, at Labor Day.
Maybe the summer just tires them out.
A competent chamber staff with its wits about it would think differently. They would think about how to make Beef-A-Rama better rather than simply chucking it. They would constantly search for ways to keep the event fresh and vital. If there were flaws and deficiencies, they would brainstorm with businesses to correct them.
They would send out surveys not asking whether the popular event should be killed, but asking how it might be made even more popular. What can we do to improve Beef-A-Rama? How can we solve these specific issues?
One question in the survey targeted the open container ordinance, questioning whether or not the ordinance be allowed to run until after 5 p.m., suggesting a concern about drinking and possibly rowdiness. But let's be clear on this point: No one was arrested for misbehavior or disorderly conduct. There was no conduct crossing the legal line, and certainly nothing suggesting the event should be moved or canceled. Comments from Minocqua's police chief just days after the event corroborated this statement.
What's more, the president of the Minocqua Area Chamber, Steve Petersen, was completely unaware of the survey or its contents. The chamber's board of directors were also unaware of the survey. Would they have approved the ridiculous survey questions? The answer is no. We are seriously questioning the oversight of the entire staff running the dog and pony show, more specifically the current chamber director herself.
This latest chamber stunt speaks volumes about the attitudes that are impeding the tourism industry in the area. Looking at the questions they posed, they might as well have asked, "Who needs tourism?"
Apparently they think we don't. But instead of looking for ways to keep people away, we need to be looking for new ways to keep people coming back and to bring more people in.
You do that by building on the success you already have, not by killing that success. The Chamber of Commerce director, Krystal Westfahl, seems to be trying her best to do the latter. Indeed, we take issue with Westfahl's comment that this newspaper and some businesses were wrong to believe the chamber ever had the remotest intention of ending Beef-A-Rama. That was not the survey's intent, she said.
But that is exactly what the intent was. She says "there's no way we're talking about pulling out or making Beef-A-Rama not happen in this community" but in fact they were the ONLY ones talking about ending Beef-A-Rama when they asked that very question in the survey.
If they weren't thinking about it, if they didn't want to consider it, why even ask the question? It's a basic push poll technique: you ask a question in a way that leads the survey respondent to the answer you want. They didn't ask an open-ended question about what improvements could be made; they asked a blunt "yes" or "no" question that tried to plant in the respondent's mind the very answer they wanted to hear. The operating premise of the question was all about possibly ending the event, not about seeking ideas or improvement, or, indeed, about seeking any input at all.
Westfahl is simply not being honest in her answers.
We think Minocqua town chairman Mark Hartzheim said it best when he said the survey questions insulted those who worked so hard over the years and suggested ignorance or animosity by the chamber - or some at the chamber - toward the event. We echo his sentiments, especially that a lot of questions need to be answered about this fiasco. We're as flabbergasted as he is.
One thing is for sure. After reading the chamber's survey, we now know the old maxim that there is no such thing as a stupid question is wrong.
There are plenty of stupid questions, and they are living right there at the Chamber of Commerce for anyone who wants to find them.
If idiocy itself was a tourist attraction, lines would be long at the Minocqua Chamber.
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