Tommy Bartlett Show In Wisconsin Dells To Close After Nearly 70 Years

The coronavirus pandemic has taken caused another business to close its doors for good. This time, it is the popular Tommy Bartlett Show in Wisconsin Dells.

According to a report from the Journal Sentinel, the water-ski, sky, and stage show was forced to close its doors for all of 2020, losing all of that revenue has forced the show to shut down permanently after 69 years of entertaining visitors at the Wisconsin Dells.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the Tommy Bartlett Show will not be able to make a comeback in 2021 as we had hoped," Tom Diehl, president and co-owner of the Tommy Bartlett Show, said in a news release Wednesday. "After 69 years, we are permanently shuttering the business."

Typically, the show would run twice per day from Memorial Day through Labor Day weekend, but because of the pandemic and a restriction on large group gatherings, the show closed for 2020, hoping to reopen in 2021.

"From May through September 6, we experienced a complete loss of revenue when we had to cancel our 2020 summer season on Lake Delton due to the pandemic," Diehl said in the news release to the Journal Sentinel.

"Each fall, we begin to plan for the next season, and with so much uncertainty surrounding the future of the pandemic and travel, we cannot undergo additional financial risk and investment to begin planning for summer 2021. While we are grateful that we have had almost seven decades of entertaining visitors in Wisconsin Dells, we have no choice but to close the Show.”

While it is a bummer to see the Tommy Bartlett Show close for good, there is some good news as the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory will remain open.

I was never able to make it to the Tommy Bartlett show, but it was always one show that I wanted to check out and was hoping to in the next year.