Wauk-Tober Organizers Release Step-By-Step Intersection Guide Following Last Year's "Navigation Incident"

WAUKESHA — Organizers of Wauk-Tober, the annual downtown beer and wine walk returning October 17, have preemptively issued a four-page illustrated guide featuring color-coded route maps and individual intersection photographs, each paired with specific turn instructions, in an effort to keep this year's roughly 900 ticketholders inside the actual event footprint.

The guide, which will be handed out with wristbands at the registration table outside Cranky Al's, covers eleven intersections along the walk's participating-business route and assigns each one a color: green for "continue straight," yellow for "turn here, trust the map over your instinct," and red for a single intersection near Broadway and Grand Avenue that organizers labeled simply "stop and reread this page."

The decision follows what event coordinator Diane Thompson, 44, diplomatically referred to as "last year's directional challenges," during which three separate groups of ticketholders crossed the downtown rail line via the Newhall Avenue underpass and continued walking for several blocks before realizing they had left the event entirely.

What Happened In 2025

According to Thompson, the three groups, totaling nineteen people, were first noticed missing around 7:40 p.m. when a participating restaurant on Main Street reported an unredeemed block of tasting tickets. Volunteers eventually located the wayward walkers on the south side, near the underpass, where they had stopped to take photos of what one member of the group described to organizers as "a really nice brick wall."

Thompson said the group had followed a paper map correctly for the first six intersections before a missed turn near St. Paul Avenue sent them south instead of east, a route that, once committed to, does not naturally return a person to downtown without backtracking past the train tracks a second time.

"We wanted to be proactive. Nobody was in danger. They were just very, very far from the wine."

— Diane Thompson, Wauk-Tober event coordinator

Thompson said this year's guide addresses that specific failure point by adding a second color-coded arrow at the St. Paul Avenue intersection and a printed note reading, in bold, "The underpass is not part of the walk."

The Guide Itself

Each of the guide's eleven intersection photographs was taken by Thompson's husband, Randy, over two Saturday mornings in September, using a stepladder to get what Thompson called "the pedestrian's actual eye level, not a drone shot nobody can use." The photos are annotated with hand-drawn arrows, distances rounded to the nearest ten feet, and, in three cases, a small illustration of the applicable street sign for confirmation.

Bob Krueger, 72, a retired city Department of Public Works supervisor who reviewed a draft copy of the guide at Thompson's request, said the document was "more thorough than some of the stuff we used to hand out for actual detours." Krueger noted that Waukesha's downtown one-way grid flips direction from block to block, a fact he said still catches out-of-towners "and a fair number of townies, too."

Councilman Gary Puchalski, asked whether the city had any role in producing the guide, said it had not, but called it "a model of civic self-sufficiency" and suggested the Department of Public Works "take a look at it" for possible reuse during the Christmas parade.

Looking Ahead To 2027

Thompson said the guide is intended as a bridge measure rather than a permanent solution. She said organizers have discussed installing temporary ground-level directional markers, small painted arrows on the sidewalk itself, for the 2027 edition, but have not finalized a budget for the idea.

In the meantime, this year's guide will be available only in print, a decision Thompson said was deliberate. "If it's a PDF, people just don't open it," she said. "If it's in their hand and it's already a little sticky from a bratwurst, they read it."

Wauk-Tober runs from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on October 17, with tickets available through participating downtown businesses. Thompson said volunteers stationed at the four highest-risk intersections will also be equipped with the guide, "in case anyone wants a second opinion."