"40 Forward" - A Look Back at 40 Years of RACVB History

While every anniversary is special, decade-milestone anniversaries have an importance all their own. When a decade-milestone anniversary is your ruby anniversary (40 years!), celebration is bigger, reflection is deeper. To celebrate its 40^th anniversary, GoRockford—the organization founded on Sept. 27, 1984 as the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau—hosted on Sept. 27, 2024 a luncheon attended by nearly 600 partners, business leaders, elected officials and supporters.

The “40 Forward” luncheon at Hard Rock Live Rockford in Hard Rock Casino Rockford was the first civic gathering in the area’s newest entertainment venue, a state-of-the-art spot inside one of the area’s long-sought-after tourist attractions. This setting was one of many red-letter moments in the ruby anniversary celebration of the organization tasked with putting Rockford on the map as a great place to live, work and play in.

A timeline on the luncheon’s program includes other destination-development touchstones in the Rockford region over the past four decades:

Appreciating these reasons to enjoy the region means more when you know what led to the birth and progress of the organization marketing them.

Before the fall of 1984, promotion of Rockford tourism was the responsibility of a committee under Rockford Chamber of Commerce. In Rockford, as in other parts of Illinois, growing a visitor economy hadn’t been a full-time, proactive effort. That changed in the early 1980s after legislation passed at the state level which allowed state funding to match what money a community could put toward marketing and promotion to grow tourism. As convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs) began sprouting across Illinois, Rockford’s was among the first.

At the time, the region was hurting. One in four people was unemployed. Building economic resiliency with new industries was a must. Tourism was seen as an industry that had the potential to make a significant difference.

The catch in getting the state funding match for a local tourism organization was that it had to be set up as an independent nonprofit, have a full-time director, and focus solely on tourism. So, the chamber and local hospitality executives came together with leaders from Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Cherry Valley, Rockton, Winnebago County and the Rockford Park District to form the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (RACVB).

The challenge, apart from the struggling economy, was that Rockford was known as a place to travel to only for business. The goal was to spread the word that Rockford was also a place to go to for fun.

The RACVB’s first director was Wendy Perks Fisher, a former educator and administrator in the arts locally and in Washington, D.C. She served for 20 years, championing—among other successes—Rockford as a destination for amateur sports. One of her team’s pioneering wins was partnering with the park district to bring state, regional and national tournaments to fields and facilities that were full with local use during the week but empty on weekends. Sportscore (now Mercyhealth Sportscore One) had opened the year the RACVB was formed.

Her successor, GoRockford President and CEO John Groh, takes particular pride in his team continuing to develop the region as a destination for sports tourism, elevating it over the past decade and a half from national recognition to world-class acceptance. One of GoRockford’s most recent wins is a three-year agreement, starting in 2025, to host IRONMAN 70.3, the globally recognized long-distance triathlon—an IRONMAN first for Illinois.

“So much of what we do as an organization is advocating, agitating, facilitating products and experiences that make this a compelling place to live. When we do that, it becomes an even more compelling place to visit,” John Groh said recently in his office, pointing to framed photos and posters of events that spark pride in Rockford.

Alongside IRONMAN 70.3 posters are portraits from Stroll on State, the annual holiday kickoff festival that brings more than 80,000 people to downtown Rockford the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and CRE8IV, the mural initiative that’s brought museum-quality art to the region’s everyday spaces.

Celebrating a decade-milestone anniversary also means working toward future milestones.

A big portion of the “40 Forward” luncheon was dedicated to a panel discussion on THRIVE 2035, the destination master plan that GoRockford has been working on over the past year with strategists who researched opportunities in both Winnebago and Boone counties. Details of the 52-page plan were unveiled to the public at this luncheon. Its focus is on ways to make the most of the areas that the region’s four rivers share: waterways, green spaces, sports facilities, main streets and downtowns.

“All the successes we have had in the past are a catalyst for reaching higher in the next 40 years,” John Groh wrote in a column for the Rockford Chamber of Commerce. “Whether people come here for a few hours, a weekend, or choose to live here, we want their experiences to be meaningful and fun. As we work together, GoRockford looks forward to celebrating the advances and wins yet to come. Ever upward. Even higher.”

Author

Helen Karakoudas is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Rockford. She specializes in community news and travel journalism.