Milwaukee’s Bastille Days returns to Cathedral Square Park from July 9 through July 12, bringing with it four days of music, food, dancing, vendors, running, drinking and people pretending they are deeply invested in the French Revolution.

The downtown festival is celebrating its 45th year, although it actually began in 1982, which is the sort of math festival organizers are apparently comfortable with.

Bastille Days is named after France’s national holiday commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison, a major event in the French Revolution. Milwaukee’s version involves significantly fewer guillotines and considerably more beer tents.

The event was originally launched near Mason Street by an executive from the Pfister Hotel before being taken over by the East Town Association and moved to Cathedral Square Park.

Over the years, organizers added the annual Storming of the Bastille 5K, which is marking its 40th anniversary. Last year, 4,594 people officially registered for the race, while an unknown number apparently joined the crowd without bothering with paperwork.

The festival now draws more than 200,000 visitors and includes four stages of live music, food vendors, French lessons, belly dancers, cancan dancers, local performers, children’s activities and assorted cultural attractions.

Festival organizers say they want to make the event feel more authentically French in the future.

That may come as news to anyone who assumed French culture was already adequately represented by accordion music, pastries and people attempting to pronounce “croissant.”

East Town Association Executive Director Tammy Bockhorst said organizers hope to add more traditional French food, artists and cultural programming while making the festival more “whimsical.”

This year’s effort includes a vendor-booth decorating contest, allowing attendees to vote for whichever tent most successfully transports them from downtown Milwaukee into a magical world of imagination, or at least temporarily distracts them from the price of parking.

Milwaukee does have some legitimate French connections.

French-Canadian fur trader Solomon Juneau helped establish the city and became its first mayor. Marquette University was named for French missionary Jacques Marquette, and the university’s St. Joan of Arc Chapel was originally built in France during the 15th century before eventually being dismantled, moved and reconstructed in Milwaukee.

The Alliance Française de Milwaukee will also participate in the festival, offering French culture, language information and beignets.

As for entertainment, the four-day schedule is enormous, repetitive and frankly more detailed than anyone needs.

The condensed version is this:

There will be live bands throughout each day on four stages, along with French cancan performances, belly dancing, short French-language lessons, children’s programming, Milwaukee Ballet appearances, DJs, brass bands, blues groups, rock acts, a drag show and several performers with names that sound as though they were selected from a random band-name generator.

The Storming of the Bastille 5K remains one of the festival’s main events, drawing thousands of runners through downtown Milwaukee.

Food and drink vendors will be spread throughout Cathedral Square, including some French-inspired offerings mixed with the usual street-festival standards.

Bockhorst said events such as Bastille Days help attract people downtown and give visitors a positive impression of Milwaukee.

Whether anyone leaves with a deeper understanding of French history is unclear.

But there will be music, fried food, costumes, dancers and enough people packed into Cathedral Square to ensure that somebody spills a drink on somebody else.

And really, that is what municipal cultural tradition is all about.

Thursday

12:15 p.m. — Competitive Baguette Measuring
1:05 p.m. — Introductory Shrugging Workshop
2:20 p.m. — Beret Adjustment Demonstration
3:40 p.m. — Silent Accordion Appreciation
5:10 p.m. — The Great Milwaukee Escargot Stare-Down
6:45 p.m. — Advanced Complaining About American Cheese
8:30 p.m. — Interpretive Dance About Parking Validation
10:15 p.m. — Midnight in Paris, Three Hours Early

Friday

11:30 a.m. — Children’s Guillotine Safety Seminar
12:50 p.m. — Learn to Mispronounce “Croissant”
2:15 p.m. — Competitive Side-Eyeing
3:35 p.m. — French Mime Emergency Response Drill
5:00 p.m. — Wine Sniffing Without Actually Drinking Any
6:20 p.m. — Historical Reenactment of Somebody Losing a Hat
7:45 p.m. — The Annual Bratwurst Versus Baguette Debate
9:30 p.m. — Accordion Battle Royale

Saturday

10:45 a.m. — Senior Citizens’ Can-Can Warm-Up
Noon — The Storming of the Portable Toilets
1:30 p.m. — Public Reading of an Overly Long Cheese Menu
2:50 p.m. — Existential Puppet Theater
4:15 p.m. — Who Can Say “Sacré Bleu” the Loudest?
5:40 p.m. — Competitive Loaf Carrying
7:10 p.m. — Napoleon Look-Alike Contest for Men Under 5-Foot-10
8:35 p.m. — Unlicensed Street Philosophy
10:00 p.m. — Drag Queen Joan of Arc Tribute

Sunday

11:45 a.m. — Hangover Mass in the Key of Surrender
1:00 p.m. — Passive-Aggressive French Conversation Practice
2:25 p.m. — The Great Cheese Wheel Roll-Off
3:50 p.m. — Closing Ceremony Nobody Realized Was Happening
5:15 p.m. — Last Call for People Still Pretending This Is About France

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