Hi Folks,
It seems fitting that on the week that we release our long-awaited seasonal festbier called “Antifa Oktoberfist,” we also announce the line-up of political partners and musicians for our 12-city "Get Out The Vote” Tour.
As a reminder to those who just tuned in recently, the main goal for our “HOPE Oktoberfist Get Out The Vote Extravaganza Tour,” which will take place between September 10th and Oct 3rd, is to recruit volunteers to work with progressive groups to “Get Out The Vote” in the last month before the election. We are now able to announce that our two “anchor” progressive partners are:
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin and Citizen Action of Wisconsin.
These two esteemed progressive organizations already have professional organizers on the ground in most of the cities we’re visiting, and they’ll be easily able to plug in volunteers to help canvas neighborhoods, make phone calls, and do whatever else they’ve planned to make sure every progressive Wisconsinite votes on Nov. 5. I say these two orgs are “anchor partners” because they are two of the largest progressive organizations in Wisconsin, but we are still talking to more local progressive groups looking to recruit volunteers to help execute their own GOTV plans in each of the cities we visit, and we’ll keep on adding to the list of partners as we get closer to the tour.
Next up: Billboards!
As you know, I passionately believe in the power of billboards to give voters in Wisconsin confidence that progressive groups are working behind the scenes to protect our democracy, and in turn, give them that extra "boost" they might need to make sure to go to the polls and/or sign up as volunteers to help the effort.
We put up a bunch of "NOPE" #nevertrump billboards around Wisconsin this summer, but since Kamala announced she was running, we changed those billboards to "HOPE."
Why? Because I believe it's more inspiring to "HOPE" that we elect a great leader than to be motivated by the fear of electing a would-be dictator.
Thanks to you, we've raised enough money to erect HOPE billboards in 9 of the 12 cities we’ll be visiting on tour throughout September and October.
The last three billboards we'd like to buy are in Oshkosh, Appleton, and Green Bay. These are all highly visible digital signs that cost about $3-4K to put up for a month (Note, one of them is already up in Oshkosh but we'll have to pay more to keep it up throughout October.)
So here's my "ask."
I'm hoping you'll chip in to raise the $10-12K we need to finish putting up those last three billboards, and I'm also hoping you'll chip in to help defray some of the costs of these GOTV events.
I've hired a full-time organizer to liaise with progressive political groups, local leaders, bands, venues, and to handle all the logistics for each event.
We're also renting venues, paying our musicians fairly, and putting musicians and staff in hotels if they are working multiple gigs away from home.
Normally for a tour like this, we'd offset expenses by selling tickets, but I want to make these events free of charge so that we can recruit as many volunteers to get out the vote as possible.
I'm planning to defray these expenses as much as possible by selling Antifa Oktoberfist beer and NOPE sparkling water at each event, but beverage sales probably won’t be enough.
The average cost for each event will be about $4K, or $48K (12 events). That plus the cost of the billboards is ~ $50K.
That sounds like a lot of money, but this email list of progressives throughout the country is pretty big and you've collectively donated a lot more for other important efforts like suing to get Trump off of Wisconsin's ballot and suing to end the parasitic private school voucher system in Wisconsin.
If you are able to help, here's a link to chip in.
Last but certainly not least, let's get to the fun stuff--MUSIC!
Of course, “getting out the vote” is the most important goal of this tour, but since we're a music-loving brewery, we can’t throw a bunch of parties without providing awesome live music!
Over the last two months, we’ve been talking to a number of bands throughout the state and have lined up a bunch of amazing musicians who are excited to contribute their talents to recruit more GOTV volunteers.
I've got personal relationships with almost all the bands playing, and I know that every single one of these musicians cares about protecting Wisconsin's and America's Democracy. Many of them are planning to share their own personal and moving stories about why they joined this effort.
Our thre headlining bands (in order of the pictures) are Traveling Suitcase (Wausau, Oshkosh, Appleton, and Green Bay) and The Mayfield Experience (La Crosse, Virocqua), and Strange Brew (Minocqua, Iron River) and my friend Tom Kastle will be the opening act for most of the tour.
Here is the rest of the lineup (in order of the pictures above):
- Northwoods troubadour and friend Scott Kirby will be joining us in Platteville and La Crosse.
- Phenomenal Guitarist and friend Tommy Bentz will be joining us in Hudson.
- Steve Klingamen will be joining us in Minocqua.
- Caleb Horne will be joining us in Eau Claire.
I CAN'T WAIT to get this tour started, and can't wait to blow the roof off of volunteer recruitment to help elect Harris/Walz and down-ballot progressives in Wisconsin.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.
Together, we'll usher a BLUE WAVE into Wisconsin: one beer and progressive GOTV volunteer at time.
Kirk Bangstad,
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC