NEW ULM - With the once in two millenniums Hermann Victory Celebration just 96 hours away from its four-day run, the Hermann Victory Celebration committee believes all the bases have been covered, said George Glotzbach, public relations contact for the event.
"Final preparations are going smoothly. There is a myriad of detail which is being addressed by a wide variety of people, most of whom are well acquainted with their subject, and volunteers that we've got are learning quickly," he reported.
"The overall event schedule has been set, and it has been published in [The Journal] today [Saturday]. The plans for entertaining German dignitaries and other dignitaries that are coming are all set, and entertainment and what-not has all been scheduled," he continued.
"The food and drink will be there in abundance. We know how we're going to be selling tickets for this, that and the other. We know which booths are going to go where. We think we know where all of the entertainment venues are, and all of that was stated in [The Journal] today. [Also] the food booth, the beer booth, the merchandise booth."
Perhaps, the biggest surprise for the organizing committee was how well the tickets sold for Friday night's banquet with both foreign and more local dignitaries.
"We had to have 40 extra tickets printed," Glotzbach noted.
Early on, the committee had decided that the number of tickets for the banquet would be capped at 290, and the cost of each ticket was set at $40. However, the demand was so great that the number of tickets was upped to 330.
"If we'd known that at the start, we would have charged more," Glotzbach quipped.
And, recent rains have washed away concerns about the Saturday night "Hermann's Thunderous Fireworks" display at dusk. Now, only a rainstorm can stop the fireworks.
While the events on Thursday and Friday, including the sold-out Grand Banquet at Turner Hall Friday evening, lead up to a very full day of activities Saturday, featuring the battle reenactment at Harman Park starting at 5 p.m., there still will be events on Sunday, including the "Grand Parade" starting at 12:30 p.m. at Third North St. and North State St.
Ron Larsen can be reached at rlarsen@nujournal. com.
