Riverfest ready for a return after a year off

Two weeks and counting until Riverfest in La Crosse. 

Several past Commodores and First Mates gathered at Riverside Park on Wednesday to promote the first Riverfest since 2019. 

There will be no new Commodore this year, because organizers didn’t know until recently if Riverfest would be allowed in 2021 because of the pandemic. 

“We didn’t want to pick somebody and then…it doesn’t happen,” says 2019 Commodore Bill La Rue. “We kind of dealt with that in 2020, had the person lined up, and all of a sudden, COVID hits and away we go.”

The 2020 Riverfest was cancelled before the Commodore could be publicly introduced, and the person chosen may be eligible again in the future.

The festival normally runs 4 days, Wednesday through Saturday, but it will span 5 days this year, June 30th through July 4th, because the 4th falls on a Sunday.  There will be fireworks along the Mississippi on both opening and closing nights. 

Riverside Park was practically deserted last year on the night of July 4th, when it normally would have been packed with people wanting to see fireworks. There was a larger crowd that evening attending a Loggers baseball game at Copeland Park.

The Riverfest medallion hunt for 2021 begins on Monday.