© 2024 WXPR
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Minocqua boat show move is a go

Town of Minocqua
/
Town of Minocqua

MINOCQUA – The popular wooden boat show will be at a new location on Lake Minocqua next year, but not far from where it has entertained visitors for over 30 years.

The Minocqua town board Tuesday approved a request from the organizers of the Minocqua Antique & Classic Boat Show (MACBS) to use Torpy Park for the show the weekend of June 17 & 18, 2022.

Event director Marc Toigo said they want to grow the event “into another big weekend for the Lakeland area.” Already, he said, it’s viewed by boat show participants and visitors as “becoming the most fun boat show in the Midwest.”

This past summer it was again hosted by The Boat House, on the Island of Minocqua. Toigo said the management did ask if the show could be held earlier or later in the season. Toigo said the boat show took up all the boat slips and parking spaces around the restaurant at a very busy time of the year.

The boat show organizers decided then to see if the town would agree to them using the Torpy Park site.

The Torpy Park site doesn’t have the heavy boat traffic -- and the waves that go with it -- that the other site experiences. Some of the classic boats cost upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars and boat owners had concerns their moored boats could get dinged up.

The town supervisors were fully on board with the move. The board also agreed to allow the boat show organizers to place six piers at Torpy Park, north of the beach area. The piers will be donated to the town, which can use the piers throughout the summer, Toigo said.

The roll-in aluminum piers will be 48 feet long and likely six feet wide. Supervisor Bill Stengl encouraged them to use piers with “heavy duty construction” so that boats moored there would not shift the piers. The wider width would allow visitors a steady platform as they walk along the moored boats.

The town will also allow MACBS to use the pavilion for food, beverage and clothing sales, and the bandshell for live music. There will be displays of wooden boats on both levels of the park.

Toigo told supervisors that the club donated $5,000 from this year’s show to the Lions Club to use for kitchen improvements at the pavilion. An addition $1,500 went to the local lake association.

Up North Updates
* indicates required
Related Content