Three weeks until the Republican National Convention starts in Milwaukee and it has some businesses in Brookfield and Pewaukee working hard to get ready.
“It’s exciting. It is the final prep. It is the sprint to the finish,” said Bethany Wagner, director of sales and catering for the Ingleside Hotel.
In Brookfield, the race is to get more than 2,000 bars of soap made, dried, and packaged before the RNC. These soaps are heading into gift bags for the delegates coming to town.
"Brookfield was looking for something different to give to their guests during the delegation so we talked about what could be different so we came up with a personalized soap,” said Nancy Justman, owner of Magnolia Soap and Bath Co.
They call this soap the "Uncle Sam." At first, they were making 1,841 soaps to supply every hotel room sold in Brookfield. However, some Wauwatosa hotels got wind of the unique soaps and now the orders are stacking up.
"It is cool, it is different and it's handmade and from Wisconsin,” said, Justin.
Over in Pewaukee, at the Ingleside Hotel, most of the work is happening behind the scenes.
"We have experience hosting all kinds of events. It is more exciting and bigger scale when it is city-wide and encompassing all of Milwaukee and the surrounding areas," said Wagner.
This won't be Ingleside's first political convention. It hosted part of the Democratic National Convention in 2020.
"Even though the DNC did go virtual we were lucky enough to host some of the members here that were participating on-site and downtown,” said Wagner.
The Ingleside says for this convention they do not have an RNC sell out. They are still waiting to see who gets all their rooms. But they are prepping things like late-night menus for delegates coming back from the convention, expecting busy early mornings before the buses leave for the RNC and extra people at the waterpark from family members that stay behind in the hotel.
“We’re getting excited to welcome all these guests from all over the world to Wisconsin and show them Wisconsin hospitality,” said Wagner.
Magnolia Soap says this specific version will only be for the RNC attendees but they will have another one like it for sale this week.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
