I hit up this fest because of fondue. Let's be honest here, I've never said no to fondue…read more In this case, the Moraine Park Technical College culinary arts program was serving up cheese fondue with fresh artisan bread and chocolate fondue with strawberries and chocolate chip cookies. For $3 per order, folks! The cheese fondue was reminiscent of a nice beer cheese soup to me, and the chocolate fondue was dark and decadent. The fest itself was MUCH larger than I had expected. Block after block of pop up booths filled with local restaurants, bars, pet goods, churches, produce, jams and baked goods, vendors like Wildtree and Tastefully Simple, antique shops, custom made clothing, jewelry and more. I also saw a booth selling domestic beer for $2.50! I have the feeling I could have easily made myself miserable with good food and drink for under $15. Entry to the festival and street parking was free, and there were live bands as well. I didn't notice any of the booths taking credit cards, but one of the vendors did mention that she thought you could buy tokens with credit cards at the fest, and the tokens were accepted by vendors.

Annual festival in Fond du Lac. Great beer, awesome food, and local Live music. A very good use…read moreof a Saturday. This is a very large festival that has good organization and is very fun. Family and pet friendly.

I'm giving Oconomowoc Days a 3 star review…read more I'm glad the fine people of Oconomowoc woke up and realized they needed to bring the carnival back. Growing up, this was THE EVENT OF THE SUMMER! Why they ever stopped doing the carnival is beyond me. This year is the first year back, and even they admitted it needed some work. They had a TIlt-A-Whirl, along with some kiddie rides / attractions, and a fun house. OK, so that aspect would be about 1-2 stars. The rides were kind of lame. But on the plus side, you got an extra long Tilt-A-Whirl ride. My husband and I did the 5K on Saturday morning, and it left a little to be desired, until the guy in charge explained to us he only had about a month to put everything together. However, all proceeds went to the food pantry and to reinvigorate Champion Field. Hooray on that end! I like the family friendly 'ticket' program - instead of giving the carnies cash, you give them tickets for the game (Purchased at the tent) and they give you fake "Oconomowoc Days Dollars" that can be redeemed. Hokey, but it did work. They also used the tickets in the beer tent, so no pressure to tip the volunteer bar maids. They did offer live music and entertainment, which seemed to draw a lot of people. They also had a drawing to win a Harley. In my opinion, there were a few kinks that need to be worked out, but this was a good start. I hope they bring it back next year, but use the feedback they received to improve on it. Viva Oconomowoc Days!

Pricing for food is outrageous. We could actually go to a nice sit down restaurant for what vendors…read morewanted here. Could be why we saw so few people eating anything. Very disappointing. Theres no reason for the constant screaming we heard. The 2 bands we walked past were definitely start up garage bands that sounded awful. This fair has definitely gone downhill. Was not worth the $. There are much nicer fair grounds and fairs in our area to attend. Not one single John Deere implement on the grounds. If they pulled out, what does that tell you???

Who knew Sheboygan County could be so much fun! I was taken back by how huge and fun this was! Tons…read moreof food and entertainment options, including the races, animals, farm equipment, cars and more! Glad I made the journey to check it out.

I have been coming to this Wisconsin country music festival since 2012. Obviously if it was a lousy…read moretime I would not keep coming back, but I have a slightly different viewpoint this year as I hauled in an RV and camped out for all 5 days instead of in a tent. This changes the dynamic of being at CUSA significantly, as it does any music festival. Since there are about a million things that can be said about such a huge festival, I will break this review down to a list of pros and cons, while at the same time adding in some changes from years past to present. Cons- -First and foremost, price. It's one of the more expensive country music festivals in the entire midwest. -As other have pointed out, MUD! If you get any rain at all you are going to be drowning in it, and the venue staff does a poof job of mitigating this problem. I had 3 outfits that were a candidate for the trashcan. -Parking, safety bands, alcohol bands, and other random fees are a pretty transparent attempt by management to price gouge as much as humanly possible. lame. I realize the logistics of an event of this size is considerable, but get real! -Not being able to bring in food and being forced to order from insanely overpriced vendors. Also places to fill a water bottle that is brought in are few and far between. -Most of the midway style games from years past are now noticeably absent. This leaves little to do between acts except drink and vegetate. -The campsites cut off shore power for several hours a day, and on top of that the use of generators is also restricted. Thus, no access to power that you are paying a hefty premium for. Even during the times it's on usage limits are in place. -There was several incidents this year of significant blunders for sound. Like, for example, the lead vocals mic going dead for half a song or more. Pros- -The lineup. This is without a doubt the best assortment of Country artists anywhere in the midwest and arguably in the entire US. -The pit. This is the first year they have had one, and if you pony up the cash for it you will be so close to the stage that it makes for an insanely good time. -Bonding. Over in the campsites its hard not to develop fast friendships with people who are also there to party and jam out to music. I have new friends from all over the US I have met at this event. -They announced that starting in 2019 CUSA will now be 3 instead of 5 days. This is a positive development, as 5 days is just rough to be in the middle of a cornfield camping out, and i'st a lot of time to take off work. -The bartenders do not skimp on drinks. Granted they still cost a fortune, but they load them up on the booze. You are able to bring the reusable cups from past years to get them filled. Overall, how much fun you have and how important it is for you to attend CUSA depends a great deal on your personal and financial situation. You can easily be out 2 grand or more if you plan to camp out and when you add in all the extras. is it an absolute blast that you are sure to enjoy? Yup, it sure is. If you are a fan of the genera you will be in heaven, but heaven comes at a very steep price.

I hate country music. Or, at least, I thought I did until my country-loving boyfriend dragged me to…read moreCountry USA in 2011. PROS: -Amazing selection of bands. Obviously, this is THE reason to come to a music festival like this. My impression of country music was totally turned on its head based listening to these incredibly talented, hip country bands. "Need You Now" was really popular back then, so I thought it was the coolest thing to hear Lady Antebellum perform that live. -Good state fair-type food. I'm a health conscious eater, but I enjoyed indulging in a fried Snickers bar, trying a cream puff, and some pizza. Not bad, Country USA! -Spontaneous chanting of "GO PACK GO." I'm an outsider from Chicago, but I am kind of in love with the special dedication Wisconsinites have for the Packers. It's endearing. CONS: -THE MUD. Oh, my goodness, the mud. It was ridiculous. I wore flip flops the first day and, after almost breaking them because they were stuck in the mud, I brought rain boots for the rest of the time. It was really dirty, though. Most people stumbled and sloshed around barefoot. -Drunk people. Almost everyone there was wasted and I felt uncomfortable with kids stuck there with their parents. "Do these drunk people think they're driving home tonight? Or are they camping there?" I thought each day. -Highway 41. I'm not going to lie, I felt unsafe in the (extremely crowded) parking lot as we left one night because everyone seemed to be drunk. Not long after we finally got out and onto the Highway 41, the traffic stopped. It turns out someone had been struck and killed. We waited until 3:30 AM before we could leave. 3 stars because someone DIED. I know that you can only control drunken people's stupidity so much (I'm not saying that was necessarily the case for the guy who tried to run across the highway, but context clues), but I think the Festival should find some sort of solution. For example, free shuttling or something. Just SOMETHING. I don't care if the prices are higher. Safety of concert-goers should always come first. 5 stars for music and 1 star for security/safety. I want to totally love Country USA, but I would need to know that it will be safe for me to leave this place at night and not get hit by a drunk driver or have a drunk person dart in front of the car. All that being said, thank you, Country USA, for making a country music lover out of me!

As an out-of-stater, we heard how great the sweet corn is and had to check it out ourselves. We had…read moredesignated Saturday night to the festival, after hearing they only serve the corn on Sat-Sun from 12-7 due to the lengthy steaming process. We found free parking, very close to the entrance. It's $1 per person to enter, 6 and under free. Strategically, the rides and games are the very first things you see. I am quite impressed with this area, because there's so many options. Tickets were $1/piece and most rides were 3 tickets. My kiddo absolutely loved it and we only spent $20. Expensive but fair considering we are at a festival. Now, I had nooooo idea what I was getting into with the sweet corn. First off, I've never heard of a tote of corn but the two lines stretched faaaaar to grab a tote. We skipped the tote line and grabbed two single ears from a much shorter line. $2/piece gave us some quality corn. They sent us behind to the buttering station and I was all, "WTF IS THIS?" It's literally several tables stacked together where you shuck your corn and roll it into a huge pan of butter. So unsanitary but when in Rome.... Next was the salt tree. Salt. Tree. Again, what sort of redneck device is a salt tree? Idk but it was a-maz-ing. Shakers on shakers on shakers of salt. I'm still laughing about this crazy corn experience. The corn was great, rides were fun for the kiddo. We were very impressed! The festival seems to be pretty commercialized with lots of business booths but that's to be expected. I'm not opposed to going back if we happen to be in town!

The Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival is an annual event held for a few days each August. I lived…read morein nearby Madison for 4 years, and that was how I discovered and attended the Corn Festival. There are many attractions: (1) First, there is the sweet corn, which is cooked with steam, and which can be purchased in a small open-air building. Near this building is a rotating clothes hanger, where strings are tied to various parts of the clothes hanger, and at the end of each string is a salt shaker. This salt shaker "tree" is a novelty that is interesting and a little bit funny, and pictures of it have been published in the Wisconsin State Journal. Of course, the sweet corn is delicious. (2) Another attraction is being in the middle of a friendly crowd. Did you ever notice that the bigger the crowd, the more people there are ?!?!? (3) Next to the fairground is a museum where you can find exhibits relating to midget race cars, where the exhibits include trophies and photos. Next to the museum are parked midget race cars, and children and other visitors can touch them and admire them. See, my attached photographs of these race cars and of the exhibits in the museum. At the Corn Festival, you can watch these midget race cars racing on an oval track starting at seven o'clock in the evening. (4) The Corn Festival includes a carnival. See, my attached photographs of a boy and a girl, each holding a huge wooden mallet over their heads, and swinging it at the lever of the "high striker" game. This mallet is sometimes called a "carnival mallet," and the name for this game, which results in a bell going "DING," is the "high striker game." GENETICALLY MODIFIED CORN. The website of the Sun Prairie chamber of commerce states that, the "corn is not genetically modified." But this is not correct. It is a proven fact that about 9,000 years ago, farmers in Mexico created corn (also known as, maize). Corn does not exist naturally. Corn was created by the genetic modification of teosinte. Teosinte was modified to alter four genes, where the result of this modification was conversion of teosinte (not edible) into the abundantly edible and yummy genetically modified plant that is known as corn and maize. This is all explained in a video called, POPPED SECRET: THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN OF CORN. The video is narrated by Neil Losin, and we learn that the scientists responsible for discovering that corn is genetically modified teosinte were: Nobel Prize winner George Beadle, John Doebley of University of Wisconsin, and Delores Piperno of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Additional info is available from, e.g., Yang, Holland, Doebley (2019) Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. 116:5643-5652; Horowitz, Doebley (2004) Genetics. 166:1-10; Wang, Doebley (2015) Genetics. 200:965-974; Lukens, Doebley (2001) Mol. Biol. Evol. 18:627-638. CONCLUSION. And so, what I suggest while enjoying your day at the Sweet Corn Festival in Sun Prairie is spending a moment of silence to show respect for the farmers living 9,000 years ago in Mexico - - - they are the ones who created corn. Corn is the most famous and beloved of all of the genetically modified food crops.

Nothing to complain about here. There's free music (and bands you've actually heard of!), a lot of…read moretasty food, carnival games, a few rides, and of course, a ton of bratwursts and beer. It's a nice evening out in the park, and is worth stopping by.

From the owner: Beer, brats, music and FUN!…read more Brat Days has something fun for people of all ages! Pumping tunes, entertainers, wild rides, contests, and so much more. Come down to Brat Days this year to see what it's all about! ** As always, Brat Days is an admission FREE event! **

Monroe Cheese Days, how to describe it for someone who's never been? It's a festival celebrating…read moreMonroe's claim to fame: cheese. More specifically, locally made cheese and limburger cheese. Local beer is a big part of it too, but that's not the star of the show (and for good reason because Minhas brews are less than good). There's live music, most of which is fantastic (pro tip: check out the beer tent down by Minhas, that's where you'll find some great music, especially later in the afternoon and evening). There are some fun Swiss cultural experiences to be had from the stage on the South side of the Square thanks to the Alphorn players, yodelers, and accordion players. As for food, the cheese curds are stupid good. Yes the line is long, and yes you should do it anyway. I only wish they'd offer an additional ticket where you have the option to pay an extra $.50-$1 to pair funky cheese sauces and aioli dips with your curds. These curds certainly don't need sauces, but it'd add to the whole foodie experience. A few notes for first-timers: -Get the cheese curds. You can't possibly participate in a Cheese Days celebration without eating these cheese curds. I promise they're the best you've ever had. -There are two beer areas: one surrounding the square, a second at the beer tent. The beer used to be restricted to beer tents only, now you can wander each respective area. -Music at the Beer tent is a must. -The beer stand on the square offers different brews than that at the Beer Tent down by Minhas, so try something from both areas. Don't expect to love the Minhas beer though. -Check out the hospitality tent ahead of time for events you want to participate in. They're free. I recommend the cheese and beer pairing class. It's lead by a Master Cheesemaker.

Should be called Minhas and cheese days. I came up from Madison, the drive was pretty! The…read morefestival was large and hard to miss. It was much larger than expected. I walked in to grilled cheese, cheese curds, cream puffs, and beer. I heard the cheese puffs was where the party was at but I decided to go with the grilled cheese from one of the tents. It was way boring. For a cheese fest, I was expecting something that had a little bit of personality but it was just blah. The cheese tent was ok. You had to fight the crowd to get any cheese and yeah, there was a good variety but you can almost get the same variety from a good cheese shop, such as my fave, Ehlenbach's. You do not even have to fight crowds there. The one saving grace was Minhas and their bandstand. Their beer was cheaper, there was a big band playing that actually made me want to boogie and the people watching was prime. I think I would go again but I would have to for sure rethink the plan. I did at one point refer to this as the Disneyland of cheese, long lines for about 10 seconds of glory.

Great day for the festival. Games, tournaments, food and beverages. Even desserts featuring Sassy…read moreCow ice cream. Canoes and kayaks available to rent for a donation to the Maunesha River Alliance.

Dan Jansen Family Fest occurs annually on Memorial Day weekend (Friday night, Saturday, and…read moreSunday). It's the official, unofficial beginning to festival season, I'm told. We drove by on Friday evening and noticed the lights, music, carnival rides, and overall merriment and decided to head back with the kiddo in tow later in the weekend. If you arrive between noon-4pm (Fri-Sat-Sun), you can enjoy their $20 unlimited ride wristband special, which is a pretty sweet deal. We, unfortunately, arrived on Sunday evening, so spent $25 on 30 ride tickets (which was plenty for our family to enjoy as many rides as we really cared to over the course of 2+ hours or so). They have your typical carnival rides (bumper cars, the zipper, etc) as well as typical carnival activities (fun house, house of mirrors) and games (darts, basketball, goldfish). They also have food vendors slinging typical fair-like food (corndogs, hot dogs, funnel cakes, ice cream, donuts). They also offer nightly entertainment. They have a different band playing each night as well as a family movie night on Saturday. The festival offers free entry, which is nice. I mean, obviously, you spend plenty on food and fun but it's nice to not have the extra entry fee on top of it all. The proceeds from the festival (100%) go to fund projects for the City of Greenfield Parks Department (in past years it's funded fountain projects, updated park signage, etc). Awesome perk to have a little fun while at the same time know the money spent is going to support local green spaces! Definitely a fun way to start the summer!

One of the best festivals I've ever been to. I go to this festival every year and I've been going…read moresince the 2016 spring season. The prices can be pretty expensive but it is totally worth it with what you get out of it. You can bring kids with you as well because they have kids rides. The food is great and a little pricey but once again, totally worth it. The only thing that isn't the best feature is that if you leave past 9, you cannot re-enter which I hope that changes in the upcoming years.

I'm a fan of live, original music and I've been to a whole bunch of music festivals when I was in…read morecollege. To a music festival, close to home, and FREE is something pretty special. MoM has gotten bigger every year with adding more venues, not just in bars but also four or five outdoor stages. I've gone every year, and I get excited to see new musical artists from all over the country. What's special is some of these artists have been coming back for several years because they enjoy this festival and how the Appleton area community supports this festival. Some people like to make a schedule of the music they want to see. Bars can be at max capacity, so you don't always getting in. I like walking around and walk into a venue and check out whatever is playing. It works for me as I've never seen a bad act, and I probably seen bands that I wouldn't have chosen if I planned out my day. We're so lucky to have this festival, and we shouldn't be supporting original music for this one weekend, we should be doing it throughout the whole year.

A friend told us about this event so we drove the two hours to Appleton on a Friday to check it…read moreout. It is very well organized and has an excellent app to help plan your attack. There are hundreds of of bands over the three days on dozen of stages. It is really mind boggling on what it must take to coordinate the logistics. We wandered around to a few outdoor stages and since it was relatively cool out for early August it was bearable to sit outside in the sun. If you want shade you are out of luck and if it were really hot or rainy well the set-up of most outside stages would be a problem. If you don't want to stand bring your own chairs but again it doesn't solve the issue of no cover at most outdoor stages - a real downside. Just about every music genre is represented so you should find something you like.