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Festa Italia 2024 · Ask The Experts

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  Eight forty three thirteen ten, wiba etched a couple of days away from Festa
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  Italia taking place at McKee Farms Park in Fitchburg, right off Chapel Valley Road
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  near McKee Road. Going to be running Saturday and Sunday and joining us this
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  morning David Rizzo. He is with the Italian Workmen's Club. David, it's
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  always great to chat with you and you guys always se him. Every year
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  I look at the look at the schedule of events, and every year you
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  seem to outdo yourselves. Before we get to what's going to be happening this
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  year, some of course fan favorite and some new stuff. Let's talk a
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  little bit about the history of Festa, and we're talking about something that's as
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  traditional as Madison, Wisconsin itself, aren't we. Yeah, Sean, thanks
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  for again for having me on. And great leading music by the way.
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  Yeah yeah. This whole thing started really back in the as far as we
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  can tell, back in the late sixties early seventies, it was a block
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  partyge the difficulty in blocking off Regent Street now, but back then it was
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  a doable thing. And it's grown from that block party to what it is
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  today and We've found a really comfortable home at McKee Farms Park in Pittsburgh.
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  And with with a little bit about that history, is is a lot of
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  us are familiar with, for example, the Green Bush neighborhood here in Madison,
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  and kind of the contributions Italians have made to Madison, Dane County in
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  the area, and uh and kind of keeping some of those traditions alive goes
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  on with this, Let's talk about some of the great events. I know.
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  One of the very popular things, and I'll be out there on Saturday
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  for this for sure, is the is the pasta eating Contest? What's the
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  background on that? And and is that is that your favorite part, David,
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  because I got to tell you it's a fun, fun event. It's
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  definitely one of our centerpiece events. And we have actually have two different contests.
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  We split them up the starting last year and it worked so well we're
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  repeating it this year. We've got one contest for kids calving under and another
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  contest for people thirteen and over and essentially it's whoever can eat their ball of
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  pasta the fastest will become you know, positive eating contest king or queen.
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  Yes, no hands either. That's no hands. Yeah, that's the secret.
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  Now that's been revealed. But that's okay. Yes, we have a
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  lot of soft covered faces, but it's all it's all fun. It is
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  a lot of fun. Again. We've got Festtalia coming up this weekend at
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  mckeeth Farms Park, the first and second. Get more details IWC Madison dot
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  com. That's IWC Madison dot com. Raffles music, other great things as
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  well, right David, We've got a great lineup of music on on Saturday.
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  We kick off with Joe Scalisi, he does his Dean Martin impersonation and
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  tribute show. We've got John Messino band, a great local band, and
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  then a Prints tribute band wraps things up on Saturday night called Purple Veins.
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  If you haven't seen them, they put on a great show. Please come
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  out and see them from seven to nine thirty. And then on Sunday Jerry
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  Demaggio does some great light jazz music and then we close things off on Sunday
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  with Vo five. They're a great dance party band that should be should be
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  a great lineup for that. Of course, the Raffle running throughout the weekend
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  as well. Some great prizes there, Yes, We have a strictly cash
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  raffle. Grand prize is fifteen hundred dollars and it all goes to a good
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  cause. Fifty percent of the profits that we make from Festa goes toward high
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  school scholarships. Scholarships for deserving high school kids, whether they're going on to
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  a four year university or a two year trade program. It's all good.
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  And you'll do the presentation for those kiddos. You do that right on Saturday,
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  don't you. We do. The scholarships are one of the first things
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  that we do present These kids work very hard to to achieve that. It's
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  a fairly rigorous process as part of what we go through to evaluate those applications.
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  And it's really great, you know, obviously the parents and the families
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  are there and it's a great triview for the kids. Talking this morning with
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  David Rizzo, he is with the Italian Workmen's Club of course, getting you
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  ready for Festalia this week at McKee Farms Park and Fitchburg. Admission for adults
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  just seven dollars. Children twelve and under they are free. Parking is free.
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  All the details on the website IWC Madison dot com. That's IWC Madison
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  dot com and what would Festa Italia be without Botchi. And you guys have
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  have tournaments going on, don't you we do it is boot cha. That's
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  something they can argued about at the club as a matter of fact. But
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  yes, we have a singles tournament, a doubles tournament, and actually on
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  Saturday afternoon at three o'clock, we have Pittsburg City Bookchay Challenge and that usual
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  the amounts to the player department and the police department and the city government kind
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  of forming teams and competing against each other for a traveling trophy. It's a
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  lot of fun. Well that should be absolutely great and for folks that haven't
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  had a chance to play boucha, it's a fun, fun event. I
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  remember as a child watching out in Jersey at Wildwood at the boardwalk. There
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  is a there's a fantastic club out there and playing playing boucha or batchi depending
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  on on how how how you pronounce it. It's it's a fun, fun
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  sport for folks. Every days. Will there be lessons or any other type
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  of opportunities for people that may want to learn a little bit about the game.
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  Yes, we do have a staff that will be there to teach the
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  game. It's like you said, it's a fairly simple game, but it's
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  one of those games that's really really hard to do well. Yes, but
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  just to learn the basics of the game. It's fairly straight forward. And
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  yes, there will be people there. There's also great games for kids.
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  We've got top games, We've got Wayne the Wizards. We've got a face
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  artist that'll do some nice pat who's on the kids. And the culture tenth
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  this year has really gone raised things up a bit. There's going to be
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  some great memorabilia there and some commemoration of the old Green Bush neighborhood that you
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  mentioned. There's also some cooking demonstrations. We're going to have a couple of
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  chefs from the local area on Saturday and Sunday demonstrating some fine Italian dishes.
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  I mentioned the musical artists as well. You guys have a very large dance
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  area and folks should be ready to ready to dance, shouldn't they. Yeah,
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  we always we always keep a nice space between the front of the stage
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  and that first row of tables in the in the entertainment tents, so there's
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  plenty of room to party. And like I said between Purple Veans on Saturday
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  night and BO five on Sunday closing out the festa, there will be plenty
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  of rooms to jump around a dance. Talking this morning with David Rizzo,
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  he is with the Italian Works Workmen's Club of course, getting ready for Fest
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  Italia this week week right up the road here from the radio station. Love
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  to see you, love to have you come out of even been to it
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  before. It is a great event, family friendly event, little something for
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  everybody. It's June first and second. That's the Saturday and Sunday I m
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  Keey Farms Park in Fitchburg. More details up on the website IWC Madison dot
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  com. That's IWC Madison dot com. And David, before we wrap this
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  morning, how about you, what are you looking forward to? As I
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  mentioned, each year, things are a little different you guys. You guys
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  make improvements, add some add some new things. Is anything this year in
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  particular that you're really looking forward to? David? Yeah, Actually, one
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  of those things that's going to be happening in the culture then is a emeritus
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  professor what happens from the UW who also happens to be a member of our
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  club. Jim Laturno is going to be giving an origins of Madison's Italian colony
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  in speech in the culture tent for those who are interested in, well,
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  how exactly did Italian get to the Madison area. He gives a great presentation.
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  It's a lot of colorful stories. Uh, so they'll be that.
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  We also have, like I said, the cooking demonstrations, and also have
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  these Flags of Italy parade and presentation. Now we have this every year,
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  but again we're stepping that up a little bit a little bit more and I
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  won't reveal a lot of the details of it, but it's a lot of
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  fun for people to really understand the twenty Reasons of Italy. You know,
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  we have fifty states here, but they have twenty reasons in Italy for those
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  who might be kind of interested in how Italy is formed and how they govern
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  themselves. So that's that's also fun. Yeah. One of the cool things
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  about you mentioned that the Flags of Italy presentation, David is as as somebody
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  who you know. I've been there the past quite a few years now and
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  I always learned something new is you have the presentation of the flags and individuals
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  who have you know, have a knowledge of that region, are able to
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  they speak a little bit to it. We talk about all the fun and
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  there's also a lot of great information real quick about about the Workmen's Club for
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  people who are familiar. What's a little bit of history of the organization and
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  what kind of we think about things like scholarships and those kind of things,
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  different type of activities that the Workmen's Club is involved with. Well, the
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  club was established in nineteen twelve. We still operate out of the same building
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  that was built by Italian immigrants back in nineteen twenty two, So the building
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  itself is one hundred and two years old. The club is one hundred and
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  twelve years old this year. And as matter of fact, just recently at
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  the Wisconsin Historical Society, we were granted State Historical Landmark designation, which is
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  a great, great thing for the club and we have you know, we
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  participate in the International Festival, which is an event at the Overture Center every
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  year with a lot of different cultural things we do. We make our own
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  line, do sauce tasting, we do sausage making, a lot of the
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  things that we used to do that the people used to do when they first
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  immigrated here, so we keep a lot of the old traditions alive, if
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  you will. We're almost one hundred and sixty members strong. We actually grew
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  our membership this year, which was really a pleasant surprise. So it's a
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  great group of guys. And in addition to the guys, we also have
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  family members and hell, we've got neighbors that are even helping out as far
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  as volunteering this year, so it's a great kind of family feel to the
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  whole thing. Another great thing I saw a couple of my friends actually in
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  Rome, completely unrelated to one another, just independently, had gone over to
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  Italy. And one of the cool things that you guys offer at the Italian
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  Workman's Club are things like language classes, and for folks that are going to
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  be traveling, for example, to Italy, having an understanding and maybe even
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  brush up for some of the language is absolutely fantastic as well as of course
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  the Green Bush Bar and other things as well. David, I look forward
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  to seeing you this weekend. Looks like we're going to have some great weather
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  and just looking at the lineup, it's going to be a fun one as
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  always, terrific. Well, I'm really appreciated. Sehn appreciated very much.
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  David, you enjoy the day, and of course David comes. So it's
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  from the Italian Workman's Club Festalia this weekend at McKee Farms Park in Fitchburg.
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  All the details up on the website Iwcmadison dot com. That's IWC Madison dot
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  com. Free parking kids under twelve they are also free. They've got the
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  raffle going on, music, dancing, food, games for the kids,
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  games for the adults. It is a fantastic weekend. If you haven't had
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  a chance to head out, definitely come on out. I'll be out there
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  on Saturday for sure, if not Sunday again as well, because I have
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  a hard time staying away and that every year the post eating contest. I
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  always live stream on Facebook and it gets hundreds and hundreds of viewers because it
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  is so entertaining. You've got to come out and see that in person.
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  That'll be again on Saturday again. All the details up at the website IWC
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  Madison dot com. That's IWC at Madison dot com. More of Madison Morning
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  is next year on thirteen ten. W I B. E.