Latest / The Scene Projects / Veronica Grosek on Event Planning, Chamber Roles, and Rally Insights

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Veronica Grosek on Event Planning, Chamber Roles, and Rally Insights · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
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  I am your host, Bubba Starts.
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  And with me today from the Sturgis Chamber of Commerce is Veronica Grossig.
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  Veronica, welcome to the show.
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  Hi.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  It's my pleasure.
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  You're gonna be a busy girl here.
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  Well, you probably already are.
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  Yeah.
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  But, Sturgis is right around the corner.
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  I wanted to give the chamber a chance to talk about some things that, you have going on,
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  obviously, during the week.
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  But we're gonna chat also about what you guys are doing over there year round to promote the
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  city of Sturgis.
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  So, without too much ado, why don't you give us a little bit of your background with the
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  chamber and in Sturgis, and then we'll pick it up from there.
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  Okay.
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  Sure.
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  Well, I've been here at the chamber as the executive director now for going on seven
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  years.
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  And this, for me, is a job that really blends my love of supporting the community and, you
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  putting on events and having music and that type of thing and supporting businesses with
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  just making a living.
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  So for me, it's the best of both worlds, and not many people can say the same thing.
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  But, yeah, I I come from a a background here in Sturgis.
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  My family has a organic farm, Bear Butte Gardens, just northeast of town, and, I've
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  kinda worked in the area and elsewhere before I came to the chamber.
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  And your family are such beautiful people.
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  I I've been working, with with your parents on the old Bicycle and Arts Music Festival way
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  back when.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  That was a great time.
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  God.
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  It seemed just a whole lifetime ago, it feels like, sometimes.
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  And, obviously, your brother plays a lot of music around that area as well.
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  Shout out to Mike Grossick.
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  Yep.
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  So, obviously, a a huge supporter of events, music, and sports wise.
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  You talked about the organic farm.
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  You guys are really, really cool people, and I love that you've always taken it upon you as,
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  really, as a whole family to promote the city of Sturgis and what it means outside of Rally.
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  I I think a lot of people obviously know the name because of the motorcycle rally, but,
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  really, you have this thriving community that is always there.
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  It's not just a, you know, one week of the year town.
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  We have this community of artists and artisans that are in the area that you get to promote
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  year round.
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  Yep.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yep.
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  As a chamber of commerce, we support the the bigger business like the Loud American, you
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  know, the new gas monkey here.
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  But we also do the little artisans, like you were saying, the smaller bands.
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  We help them meet the community, meet the businesses, and grow into bigger and better
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  things.
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  So, yeah, we're really lucky to be able to work with all types all types of business people and
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  support all of that.
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  So as executive director, what does your rally week look like?
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  Are you making appearances, or are you pretty much stationed right at the welcome center and
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  being the welcome committee?
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  Yeah.
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  I keep a pretty low profile for sure.
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  Their chamber doesn't organize the rally in an official capacity, but we do run the official
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  welcome center of Sturgis.
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  So our main job is to just greet our guests, make sure they have all the information they
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  need.
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  We're putting together a comprehensive vendor map this year.
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  We are also putting together comprehensive event lists across all venues.
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  So that has been a big undertaking, and all of that will go in a visitor information booklet
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  that we can hand out throughout the week.
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  So we're just really trying to make people's lives easier, make it more organized so that
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  they can have a great time throughout Rally.
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  And then, of course, I love to go out and see music and stuff and check out check out all the
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  fun stuff going on too.
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  Well and I will speak from personal experience.
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  You have a digital version of these comprehensive lists, and that's really how I
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  kinda built the scene project's list of appearances, was I was able to finally go to
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  one and still using the individual venues, you know, lists as well to kinda juxtapose times
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  and different things.
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  But you did a great job of assembling by venue what they had going on each and every day of
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  the rally, and I've never seen anything like that in all of my years of going to the rally
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  and, you know, living out there and experiencing it that there was never one place
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  to go to to say, hey.
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  This day, this is what's happening across the board, and, it's a huge undertaking because
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  there's just so much, especially in the eighty fifth annual this year.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  I also noticed in my years at the chamber, like, where do you where do you go as a visitor
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  to find the information about every venue?
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  How can you see every concert going on in town?
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  And I realized that there really isn't anything.
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  So I was like, well, we're the welcome center.
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  We should do it.
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  So that's how that's how it came about, kind of from personal need, trying to plan out my week
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  like you are and and help our guests.
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  Did you face any challenges, during that process process of assembling this thing, like
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  reaching out to venues?
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  So, you know, was everybody pretty much on board and thinking that this was a great thing,
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  or were there some that were like, No.
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  It's pretty it's pretty easy.
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  We have a great relationship with most of the businesses here town.
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  They're most of them are chamber members, so we interact with them on a regular basis for
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  events throughout the year.
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  Some of them that are a little harder to get get in touch with.
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  I mean, we can just pull stuff off their website if we need to.
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  It doesn't have to be a a drawn out process.
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  You know?
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  We just we grab it when we see it.
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  We put on put it on the list, and and we just have a great relationship with all of them.
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  Yeah.
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  The hardest part is just the initiative.
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  They're like, hey.
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  We're gonna do this.
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  Yeah.
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  It's a lot of elbow grease, a lot of just busy work, punching it all in, double checking it,
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  triple checking it.
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  And then the rally is one of those beasts of an event that it doesn't matter how much you try
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  and prepare for it.
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  It changes day by day.
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  There's so much information and so many vendors that you don't know about till you get here,
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  and that's just its nature.
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  So we're continuing to update things and provide updated information to visitors every
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  single day of the rally.
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  This is the first year that you've done these comprehensive lists?
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  Yep.
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  It is.
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  Yep.
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  So this is a real trial year, so bear with us.
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  We're definitely not gonna have 100%.
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  But, hopefully, after this year, the campgrounds, the venues, the restaurants, the
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  vendors will will see it, and they'll reach out to us to make sure that we have updated
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  information more and more moving forward as well.
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  Yeah.
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  Almost like the official Sturgis magazine is what this is becoming, it seems like.
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  Oh, we we actually do have a year round magazine called five seven seven eight five.
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  So we just published our third year of it.
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  And if you have a chance to check that out, it's got articles about our restaurants, our
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  ranchers, everything going on year round, including rally activities.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, I had seen the publication, but I didn't realize it was part of the chamber.
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  So how cool.
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  I I love these really awesome initiatives that you're taking.
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  And, really, it's it's not I mean, yes, it is something that you do.
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  You are the chamber.
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  It is your job to promote these businesses, but I feel like you're going really above and
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  beyond to provide something different and something that's necessary.
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  So I really commend you for taking the initiative to do it and putting the elbow
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  grease in to get it done.
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  Oh, thank you.
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  Yeah.
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  It's definitely a labor of love.
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  There's a there's a standard that you could be at as a chamber, but, I mean, we wanna keep
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  pushing that pushing that bar further and further and doing more and more every year to
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  make it a better community.
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  When you're just in such a unique position because Sturgis is what it is, it's not you
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  know, I live in a town of a thousand people.
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  We have a little chamber of commerce as well, but we're never taking on something of the
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  likes of the Sturgis motorcycle rally, which I guess I mean, I'm assuming the estimates for
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  this year's attendance have to have to be breaching a million people this year.
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  Yeah.
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  I I haven't heard any official numbers from the city offices, city hall, but I think it's gonna
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  be a big one.
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  I can say that I went down to see my brother play in the Tyler Bills trio last night at the
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  Loud American, and usually the Monday before the rally, there's some people it's starting to
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  heat up a bit, but it felt like full on rally this year.
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  So I don't know what it's gonna be like next week, but I think it's gonna be big.
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  Well, big shout out to Tyler Bills and and his band as well.
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  Huge fan.
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  I think we're probably gonna end up running into each other while I'm in Sturgis just
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  because we have similar taste in music.
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  So, Veronica, where can people find more about the chamber?
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  Where can they get the list?
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  And, where can they stop and see you and the rest of the chamber gang when they get into
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  Sturgis?
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  Sure.
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  Yep.
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  All of the information is right on the homepage of our website.
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  You can go to sturgisareachamber.com.
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  There's a link to the the comprehensive vendor map, a link to the event list, and then we have
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  a little adventure guide as well that kinda helps you plan out your stay if you haven't
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  been before, plus all the rest of our year round stuff and our business directory.
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  And then if you want to call us or email us with questions, you can always do that.
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  You can just quick Google search.
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  You can find that info.
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  And we are located on Junction Avenue, just north of the hospital in Sturgis.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, Veronica, thank you for all the hard work you've put into these lists.
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  They were a huge help to me in planning out the SCENE projects rally week.
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  And thank you for being part of the SCENE.
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  Of course.
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  Thank you.
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  It was great.