Gary Witt, president and CEO of the Pabst Theater Group, told The Recombobulation Area that the majority of the group’s venues will have no events booked for the RNC.
Two of downtown Milwaukee’s most iconic venues, the Pabst Theater and Riverside Theater, will likely sit empty during the convention, he said, as will the Vivarium and The Fitzgerald, which are both located on Milwaukee’s East Side. Turner Hall Ballroom will host a yet-to-be announced organization, but that arrangement was made for the DNC in 2020 before the convention went mostly virtual.
Witt characterized the RNC planning as “underwhelming” and a “failure.”
“It’s 100% a case of ‘overpromise, underdeliver,’ on all parts, by everybody,” he said.
“We were told it was going to be one way over and over and over and over again when (the RNC) was confirmed, and it has turned out to be almost anything but the way that we were told it was going to turn out,” Witt said. “We were sold a storyline of how this is going to go, and basically it didn't go anything at all like the storyline that we were sold.”
Witt also said the Pabst Theater Group is in “constant contact with everyone else in town that does what we do, and I’m hearing the same thing from them.”
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