‘Discover Wisconsin’ finishes first filming days in Rhinelander

Discover Wisconsin is a travel television program that looks to increase tourism in Wisconsin. It premiered in 1987, the brainchild of Dick Rose. It now reaches millions of people across cable and satellite broadcasts as well as through its digital presence. All of this makes a February 2026 episode super-exciting to the Rhinelander area. For the first time in over 20 years, Rhinelander will have its own episode on Discover Wisconsin, according to Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce director Lauren Sackett.

At this month’s Rhinelander tourism and marketing committee meeting, Sackett highlighted where the project stood, saying Discover Wisconsin film crews had just left after several days of summer filming, she reported to the committee. Crews will return for a day or two in the fall for the fall segment of the show. With her fingers crossed, she also reported the crew would be back again in December, hoping for some snow and winter footage of the area. If snow held off until after December, Sackett was worried about having ample time to do the post production work and still make the February air date. While she did have winter footage from other projects, the hope was to be able to get at least one day in December for filming of some new footage. Overall, she said, the summer filming days went well and the weather was perfect.

“I believe they hit most of the resorts needed for the resort portion of the episode,” she told the committee. “That third segment will be all Rhinelander resort-centric. We also started to hit some of the recreation and activity pieces.” Crews were filming at the BMX track, the golf course, Pioneer Park Historical Complex and that week’s summer concert. Crews also started filming the dining segment of the show with a dinner at Wally’s South 17 Supper Club, interviewing a family there. Another family at Forshyth’s was interviewed for the lodging and resort segment, with a back up interview done at Holiday Acres.

Sackett also reported she had paid the downpayment for the episode. The final payment would be due next year. Once that payment was made, she would bill back through the Rhinelander resorts portion to recoup those funds.

New episodes of Discover Wisconsin do not typically air as early as February, but she said Discover Wisconsin had worked well with the chamber regarding when they wanted the episode to run. Sackett wanted the episode early in the season, to catch those people who were planning their vacations.

“One of the things that I am in discussions about is doing some sort of premier party, or a community watch party or something,” she said. “Maybe they’ll let us watch it the night before it’s supposed to go live and we can watch it at maybe a theater here in town where people can come and watch it.” She said she felt she could make the watch party happen. It was just a matter of getting all of those pieces into place.

Rhinelander Convention Center feasibility study

Another matter before the tourism and marketing committee was whether to move ahead with a feasibility study for a potential Rhinelander convention center. The committee first talked about the matter in February, and Sackett said she had been working with the North Central Regional Planning Commission to outline what that might look like.

She outlined for the committee the general process through which North Central Regional Planning Commission would take during the feasibility study. This would include area demographics, conference center trends and a needs analysis, looking at existing facilities in the 50 to 100-mile range. Another area of interest would be whether the area’s hotels had the capacity to handle this type of building and the draw of having larger events in the city. The study would also look at what type of square footage or attendee capacity the community could accommodate. Costs and recommended potential locations were also part of the feasibility study, Sackett said.

“They had proposed doing this in early 2026, just because of the work they have going on right now,” she told the committee. “But there would be a couple of meetings for them to be doing the planning and the mapping, and the cost was $11,500 for the feasibility study. They also noted that because we are a member of the North Central Regional Planning Commission, that they could offset 50 percent.” Sackett said she thought it was quite affordable, and the offer came in far under what she expected after having looked at what other cities have paid for such a study.

Oneida County board supervisor Russ Fisher said if the county were not a member of North Central Regional Planning, the commission would not work with any entity in the county. Membership, he said, was “on the chopping block,” but he felt it would stay in the budget this year. There was some concern on the board as to whether or not the county was getting what it paid for. Sackett asked, with that in mind, if it would be in the city’s best interest to move forward with the feasibility study now.

“That’s what I was going to say,” Fisher said. “If we’re going to do it, I would do it now.”

When the discussion turned to how to pay for the study, Sackett said there was money in the general fund to pay North Central for the study, and that there would also be funds in the designated budget for the expense. Mayor Kris Hanus said he felt it would be better to take it out of the city designated fund rather than the general fund, as the project would benefit the city more than outlying entities, who would experience a trickle-down effect.

“Pretty much with the police and fire station moving within the next five years, you have that whole site,” Hanus said. “That came up — is this something the city builds… there are two more hotels still wanting to build in town. One is more of an extended stay and one wants really to be downtown.” He said he did not believe the city council had set a direction yet on whether it would be a publicly owned facility or a privately owned facility. Fisher said Hodag Sports Club was also building a banquet center that would be available to the public and would hold 300 people. Hanus said having a facility downtown that would hold 300-400 people would mean that events such as Art in the Park could potentially be moved indoors if the weather did not cooperate.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been reached out to in the past few years, where like this fire fighters group is looking to hold their conference here and they know we have the hotels, but they’re looking for the space where they can hold the actual meetings and break out session and things like that,” Sackett said. “So, we’re getting more requests. And I’d really like to see some smaller scale events held north of Wausau.”

“It sounds like a no brainer,” said committee member Janet Jamison. The total for the feasibility study came in under $6,000, which Sackett reiterated was much lower than she thought it would be. Another community at which she looked paid over six times as much to have a private company do a similar study. Skinner motioned to pay for the feasibility study through North Central Regional Planning, with funds coming from the city designated account, pending the 50 percent price reduction through North Central.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].