Skip to site content
Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader

Milwaukee knows how to throw a party!

Visit Milwaukee threw a party for more than 400 guests at the 2010 BankTravel Conference on February 7 and it didn’t disappoint.  The evening began at the Harley Davidson Museum, an amazing collection of hundreds of vintage motorcycles.  There were riders in the crowd and plenty of non-riders as well, but it didn’t seem to matter who was who.  

From 1902, these machines have been part of the American fabric and many on display have been lovingly customized by owners who considered them to be their legacy.  Most of us lingered for quite some time here before finding our way over to a sprawling party room across the street for an open bar with finger foods and two huge screens for enjoying the Super Bowl.  That’s right–it was Super Bowl Sunday and most of us hit the game room sometime in the first quarter.

The Packers may have been at home, but there were plenty of Colts and Saints fans in the room and this party took on a raucous revelry as different parts of the room erupted in cheers for their teams.  The most ardent fans were on the last bus out right at halftime as the party moved to the Potawatomi Bingo Casino.  A lavish ‘heart healthy’ meal was served and many wore red to this fund-raiser for the local chapter of the American Heart Association.  

Handmade dolls provided the centerpieces for the evening and tables bid on them through the dinner until they were all snapped up.  In all, $5,000 was raised by the delegation and the BankTravel Conference for the AHA.

Just outside the ballroom, as the dinner wound down, dozens gathered to watch the Saints complete one of the Super Bowl’s most historic victories.

Many thanks to Wendy Dobrzynski and Brent Forster and their many partners for an evening that roared like the Harleys that kicked it off.


Delegate Barbara Bowen stayed in red for the Flemming Tours breakfast the following morning.

Mac Lacy

Mac Lacy is president and publisher of The Group Travel Leader Inc. Mac has been traveling and writing professionally ever since a two-month backpacking trip through Europe upon his graduation with a journalism degree from the University of Evansville in 1978.