Favorite Scoop Poster

[keefe]

Speaking of anti-disco, anyone remember the anti-disco protest in front of the Varsity in 1979?

We had too much time on our hands.

Glow, it's all your fault.

Gawddam I had forgotten about that. One of the organizers was from my floor on Schroeder 10N. Bearded dude named Tom who deejayed for WMUR.

It smacked a little of Steve Dahl's event but still funny.

[real chili 83]

Were you still on 10N then?

[alsmoe]

Good record

[ZiggysFryBoy]

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Gawddam I had forgotten about that. One of the organizers was from my floor on Schroeder 10N. Bearded dude named Tom who deejayed for WMUR.

It smacked a little of Steve Dahl's event but still funny.

Big Steve Dahl fan. Met him once and super personable to everyone who came up to talk to him. He's calmed down a lot though.

[keefe]

Ten Cent Beer Night at Municipal Stadium also resulted in a forfeit. Indians fans were on the Texas dugout throwing beers, hot dogs and baseballs at the players. The crowd eventually stormed the field and the game was called.















American Enterprise and Cleveland Pride:

[GooooMarquette]

Ten cent beer at a sporting event - who could have possibly anticipated anything going wrong with that one?

[mu03eng]

Ten cent beer at a sporting event - who could have possibly anticipated anything going wrong with that one?

Almost as good as having all you can drink Martini's at the Milwaukee Art Museum for $30.  Hilarity ensued.  The Bob and Brian reading of that event was classic

Martinifest leaves art museum shaken and stirred
Booking procedures reviewed after wild rental event; 2 artworks being examined
By MARY LOUISE SCHUMACHER
mschumacher@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 27, 2006

The glistening white Santiago Calatrava addition has made the Milwaukee Art Museum one of the city's classiest social addresses. But a recent martini fete held there turned into an overcrowded, drunken affair. Some unruly guests accosted artworks, which have been taken off display for a checkup.

People threw up, passed out, were injured, got into altercations and climbed onto sculptures at Martinifest, a semi- formal event organized by Clear Channel Radio and held at the museum Feb. 11, according to several people who attended or worked at the event.

"Hindsight is 20-20 . . . it was probably too cheap," Kerry Wolfe, a local programming director for Clear Channel, said of the event's premise - unlimited martinis for $30.

"In our five years of experience, we have never had any problems with rental events," David Gordon, the museum's director, said in a brief written statement responding to questions about the event. "It was not an appropriate event to be held in the museum, and we have reviewed our procedures for bookings."

The art museum rents out space during most weekends and many weeknight evenings for events that often include food and drink, as many museums do. When he arrived about five years ago, Gordon liberalized the museum's policies about whom it would and would not rent space to in an attempt to attract a wider array of audiences for the museum. It is more welcoming to the community now than it was under the previous director, Russell Bowman, when the museum often turned away community groups and an event such as Martinifest would have been unthinkable.

Rental income has become important for the museum in its drive to meet operational costs. It represents 6% of annual revenue, according to the museum.

As was the case with prior events, the sculptures lining one of the long gallerias in the museum's Calatrava-designed building were in close proximity to serving areas during Martinifest. But this time, food, drink and vomit were on and around some of the artworks by night's end, according to some accounts.

"It was crazy," said attendee Kathleen Christians, 39. "People were shoving people over. People were getting sick, screaming, shouting, messing with the artwork."

A group of four young men climbed onto "Standing Woman," a tall, bronze sculpture of a goddess-like woman with exaggerated features by early 20th-century American artist Gaston Lachaise.

"They were standing on it, grabbing the boobs, and somebody was just taking pictures with a cell phone," said Laura Collins, 35.

Asked whether artworks had been damaged or are in need of cleaning, the museum said two sculptures had been removed for "review" and more would be known in two weeks, after the senior conservator returns to the museum and has had a look. The sculptures are made from resilient materials such as bronze

At the event, several vendors ran out of food, drink mix and vodka early on. Some who ran out of mix started pouring straight shots of vodka, according to several accounts.

Restaurants and nightspots that took part in the event, paying $400 each to be included, included Sol Fire, The Knick, Silver Spring House, the Velvet Room, the Wicked Hop and several others.

"We were hoping for a little sophistication, maybe," said Casey Rataczak, 27, a Wicked Hop bartender. "People were shoving their martini glasses in my face and not wanting to talk about the product . . . they were just worked up about getting their booze."

Matthew Wheeler, 32, the beverage manager at The Knick, said the event was "a phenomenal idea" with "poor planning." For an event like that, he said, it is best to hand out drink tickets to limit alcohol intake.

"I have never worked a Summerfest, but it felt like a Summerfest," he said. "It was just non-stop people, people, people."

It might have been the sheer size of the crowd that turned the party into a potentially dangerous and damaging situation.

"We were sardined in," said Collins, a first-time museum visitor. "People, boy, they wanted their martinis."

Tina Zarnoth, 32, said: "It just seemed right off the bat that things were chaotic. There were too many people there . . . people were getting rowdier and rowdier by the hour."

Denise Curran, 34, a lab technician who was injured when someone leaned onto a table that fell onto her legs, said, "You couldn't go anywhere, there was no flow."

"My whole calf is one big, nasty bruise," she added.

In its statement, the museum said it had been "assured by Clear Channel that capacity would be limited to 1,400" and that it "was clear that the assurance was broken."

Clear Channel, a large entertainment corporation that owns six local radio stations, has staged about a half-dozen other events at the museum in the past four years, including one the night before Martinifest. Wolfe said the museum provided information that indicated capacity was 2,175. The museum said it never provided such a number.

The museum and Clear Channel had a preliminary agreement that tickets would be sold for about 1,500, said Wolfe, who called the event "a success" but agreed that it was too crowded. Clear Channel spoke to a woman on the museum's events staff the week before the event and told her what the higher potential number could be, Wolfe said.

"And nothing was ever said" at that time, he added.

A museum statement said there had been ongoing updates from Clear Channel, but a cap had been firmly agreed upon.

The museum's written statement indicated there was no way to determine what the actual attendance was. Vendors said they were expecting from 1,200 to 1,700, based on what Clear Channel had told them. Wolfe said Clear Channel sold 2,010 tickets, and he believed that 1,871 people attended Only a few tickets were sold at the door, he said.

Clear Channel carried insurance for the event, as required by the written contract between the group and the museum, Wolfe said. Clear Channel has not been contacted by the museum about any damage to artworks but assumed that the insurance would cover whatever damage might have occurred, he added.

Police reported nothing major at the fest, but several attendees described minor injuries and other unpleasantries.

"We had seen this girl who had fallen," said Jamie Zwicky, 29, an emergency room nurse who attended the event. "She had a laceration on her head and some blood coming down . . . she looked very intoxicated."

A man who got into what Wolfe called a "family feud" with another man jumped from an outside terrace on the south side of the museum, several reported. The hospital where the man was taken told Wolfe the man was going to be fine.

Zwicky said that when she left about 11 p.m., four ambulances were outside the museum; Wolfe insisted there were two.

Wolfe said the museum agreed to provide security and cleanup staff and that the staffing was inadequate. Trash cans were overflowing and not emptied, he said.

The museum provided seven guards, including a supervisor, and additional support staff adequate for the planned event, the museum said in a statement. Clear Channel believed there were four guards, Wolfe said.

"I didn't see any museum guards," Collins said.

Zarnoth saw a few guards - removing a drunken young woman.

"Her arms were slung over them and her feet were dragging, basically," Zarnoth said. "I'd say that was pretty passed out."

The "Elusive Signs: Bruce Nauman Works With Light" feature exhibit was open for the first two hours of the event, including the first hour open only to VIP ticket holders who paid a premium, but a member of the museum staff stopped people with food or drink from entering.

The museum does not publicly disclose what it charges for its facilities, but Wolfe said it has always been competitive but substantial. Clear Channel traded significant radio advertising for the Martinifest rental, Wolfe said.

Very few museums allow food and drinks in exhibition and collection areas, though a majority permit entertaining in public spaces, according to a 2004 survey of the American Association of Museums. In spaces that are both public and used for displaying art, as in the Milwaukee museum's gallerias, policies vary greatly and are based on circumstance.

Clear Channel plans to stage another Martinifest in 2007 - in a larger location, Wolfe said.

[warriorchick]

Ten cent beer at a sporting event - who could have possibly anticipated anything going wrong with that one?

Didn't some team have Dime Beer Night for the same game as Bat Night, or was that an urban legend?

[GooooMarquette]

Didn't some team have Dime Beer Night for the same game as Bat Night, or was that an urban legend?

Wow - never heard that one.  If it really happened, the organizers could consider themselves fortunate if the fatality rate was under 10%.

[swoopem]

Didn't some team have Dime Beer Night for the same game as Bat Night, or was that an urban legend?

That has minor league baseball written all over it

[Bocephys]

Didn't some team have Dime Beer Night for the same game as Bat Night, or was that an urban legend?

[brandx]

June 18 was the 41st anniversary of one of the craziest nights in Milwaukee Brewer history – the first dime beer night. While the Cleveland Indians held a more celebrated blowout three years later in 1974, the Brewers blazed the way with a totally nutty night of beery debauchery.

And I quote from the esteemed Larry Whiteside story in the next day's Journal: "There were weird contests – and more contests. One man ordered 130 beers and his group finished them by the sixth inning... Four youths still had 24 cups left when the game ended and were last seen finishing them off."
It's almost unimaginable today to sell beer at such a price – the equivalent with inflation would be 57 cents, a ridiculous price for beer, but the team had instituted the promotion to hype the attendance that was lagging in the second year in Milwaukee. It came at the height of the Baby Boom generation's coming of age when, in deference to the soldiers coming home from Vietnam, the drinking age had been dropped to 18.

In those early days, Friday was not a popular night to go to a game and the team dangled ten cent beer in the face of fans as an enticement to get them in the habit. It should be pointed out that the team did put limitations on purchases: you could only buy six beers – at a time! And the team had set aside 1,000 barrels of beer for this promotion. You read that right – 1,000 barrels. At ten cents a beer, it turned suds into a cheap commodity, so throwing it at each other, at players, ushers and umpires made sense.

Fights broke out almost every inning, sights that had the teams on the top step of their dugouts, but facing away from the action on the field. "I've never seen anything like it," said one Brewer who sat in the bullpen. "It was the wildest crowd I've ever seen. They were throwing beer and beer cups all over the place. Everybody seemed to be having a gay old time."

More from the Journal: "Predictably fights broke out in all sectors of the park, usually matching police against an overenthusiastic and slightly polluted rooter. It was usually a one-sided contest and many of those carried away were released without charge. Surprisingly, the only persons entering the playing field were two young men, who moved so quickly and with such reckless abandon that they were practically ignored by the ushers. Once touching the hallowed ground, they quickly retreated and ordered another."

In other words, the inmates were running the asylum making it all the more astonishing that the Indians had the same promotion three years later – with inevitable results. The only thing that kept old County Stadium from the riot that occurred in Cleveland was the weather. It rained during the day and it was overcast and cool during the game. The team got about half the attendance they expected.

It just made more room – and beer – for those who showed up. So many people were arrested that an impromptu court was set up to handle the cases – friends described inventive defenses used to try and elude the charges. One man who was nabbed after going into the women's room to urinate told the judge, "I didn't see the W-O." He didn't get off, but even the judge laughed at that one.

Stories were told for years after. One poor vendor was asked the classic question of the day: "Who's better: Mays or Aaron?" He was doused with beer for saying 'Mays," but it's likely there was no correct answer to the question.

In the next two seasons, the Brewers held a couple of other ten cent beer nights, but limited fans to a respectful two ten-cent beers total. As time has gone on, the event has been scrubbed from almost any mention online as the Cleveland riot and Disco Night at Comiskey Park have become the center of attention for crazy promotions.

[keefe]

Almost as good as having all you can drink Martini's at the Milwaukee Art Museum for $30.  Hilarity ensued.  The Bob and Brian reading of that event was classic

What a GREAT story! Debauchery, lewdness, vomit...a veritable Roman bacchanal under the guise of art.