The city of Milwaukee is known as the City of Festivals, with every week celebrating at least one of the various cultures, arts, and musical acts of the world.
Planning for these events can take anywhere from a few weeks to over a year. But the one staple that's necessary to help keep festival organizers going may be unexpected - golf carts.
Golf carts are't just for courses. Whether it's a small church festival or Festa Italiana, there are different carts that are needed to pull of every event. Just ask Midwest Golf Cart business owner Gary Gorski, who has been in business for 26 years.
"More specialty vehicles like four passengers, utilities, flat beds and six passengers," says Gary.
The golf cart business is seasonal, from June to October. The Gorski family has owned carts since 1980. Gorski bought the company and started out with six carts and his two kids. Together he and his wife grew the cart fleet to 75 and his son, Brad Gorski, became the Operations Manager.
Gorski is one of five golf cart companies that work Milwaukee festivals, and though it's seasonal, it's busy. For more than 20 years, Midwest Golf Carts has done business with almost every festival on the Summerfest grounds.
"For safety, all of our cars that go down have to have, on Summerfest grounds have to have: a light, horn, and strobe," says Gary.
Brad has worked the family business, since he was six. He says it has its perks, especially since he has two sons of his own, who he hopes will help him run the business after Gary retires.
"We get essentially three generations of it. So it makes it more enjoyable...It's more rewarding than doing something for something else and not enjoying the final product of it," says Brad.
While Summerfest is the largest festival they cater to every year, the two second biggest festivals are German Fest and Festa Italiana. The Gorskis are sure every organizer agrees that these carts are a safe, reliable lifesaver.
Sarah Pancheri, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Summerfest, says it's a small piece you wouldn't think of, but with out a golf cart, things are a bit harder.
"You've done all that planning. You've worked so hard to get everything in place, The necessity of a golf cart, to really make sure it pulls off the right way is critical," says Pancheri.
Pancheri says there can never be too many carts. The more the better, because everything tends to move at once, and always in different directions, when running a festival. A golf carts is essential because it's versatile --moving security or musicians, or numerous products.
"I can tell you walking the 75 acres every day for 11 days, you 're sure grateful to have a golf cart to set up certain places at certain times," says Pancheri.
So while golf carts may seem unnecessary to even mention, Summerfest uses close to 100 golf carts every year to help run that 11-day event. Additionally, German Fest and Festa Italiana use almost 40 carts each for their events.
