Kelly’s Beer Gardens comes back on May 15 and 16 for its annual end of UW-Oshkosh’s school year celebration.

“We treat it as a celebration weekend and I think everybody else does as well,” Daniel Schultz, Kelly’s Bar owner, said.

Kelly’s Beer Gardens is an event for all students, graduating or not, as a “farewell to the school year,” Schultz said.

Schultz used to work at Kelly’s Bar for about five years before buying it in 2018. With the bar, he inherited the Kelly’s Beer Gardens tradition.

“Everybody knows when graduation at Oshkosh is and for us to put on an event to celebrate,” Schultz said. “That is what I look forward to.”

For this event, the front of Kelly’s Bar facing Wisconsin Street  gets fenced off and two beer trailers will be put up against the fence. There will be two entrances, one on each side of each parking lot. A tent will be set up, complete with a stage for a live band and a DJ.

This is the first year that the variety cover band, Milly & The Mayhem, will be hitting the stage at Kelly’s Beer Gardens. The band plays a wide variety of genres, from pop and country to rock and metal, with covers ranging from Adele to Led Zeppelin. They’ll be playing on May 15 and 16 from 8 p.m. to midnight.

With graduation, Kelly’s Bar loses a lot of their graduating student employees, according to Schultz.

“It’s the last thank you to all the students that have been giving us business, so we love to do it and we’re happy to do it and people are always excited for it,” Schultz said.

According to Schultz, this is an event for reminiscing student years and showing your loved ones where college memories were made.

“The parents get to experience a little bit of what their kid has been doing the last three or four years,” Schultz said.

Josh Lehner, a UWO alumnus, said that “going to Kelly’s to celebrate graduation and the start of the summer is one of my favourite extracurricular memories from college.”

Hearing stories about the college experience is one thing, but Schultz said seeing students graduate and move into adulthood is very full circle.

“This is basically your last part of being a kid, once you graduate the world is yours and I think that’s the most beautiful thing,” Schultz said.