Music Local Culture

Midwest Living Features Eau Claire, Focuses on Music

Lauren Fisher |

It's always nice to be noticed. Midwest Living published this quick overview of the city’s developments after the Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival rose to fame, as well as its merits as a vacation destination.

The piece discusses Justin Vernon’s part in putting Eau Claire on the map (as many of these travel articles do) after his 2012 Grammy win for Best New Artist, the Eaux Claires IV no-line-up line-up, and the evolving identity of what was once a lumber town.

“Standing on the roof of Ramone’s, Blayne Midthun points to all the life around his new ice cream shop: street sculptures, chefs opening trendy restaurants, two boutique hotels. And a $60 million performing arts center opens this fall. Beside it, Phoenix Park replaced a brownfield site with green space, water access, paths and an amphitheater at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers. ‘This all used to be an industrial dump,’ Blayne says. ‘Come down here five years ago, and there would be nothing going on.’” – Midwest Living, May 2018

Writer Timothy Meinch characterizes the Oxbow Hotel as a “woodsy romantic,” and the Lismore as the “chic urbanite.”  For fun times between music festivals, the Eau Claire Downtown Sculpture Tour is recommended, as well as a jaunt out to Chippewa Falls for a Leinie’s tour, enjoying a ride on the Chippewa Valley’s extensive bike trail system, or going for a paddle on our multitude of waterways and lakes.