BUCKY ON PARADE

Event schedule

May 7 - September 12, 2018

Everyone’s favorite college mascot (well, our favorite anyway) has cropped up all over town. Bucky on Parade is a public art exhibit with 85 six-foot Bucky statues placed around Madison. Done by different artists in unique designs and motifs, these Buckys are really incredible to see.  They will be on display until September 12 and will be auctioned for charity at the end of the event.

Madison Insider Tips

• We have maps of Bucky’s locations at our front desk or you can do a Where’s Waldo type of thing and try to spot them yourself. Parents – it’s fun to combine the two strategies. Casually direct your kids to the general area of a Bucky statue and watch them go nuts when “they found him!”

• Here are a few things to know about our beloved badger…His full name is Buckingham U Badger but you can call him Bucky for short! In the 1940s the university tried using an actual badger to be its mascot but badgers are fierce creatures and it wasn’t safe to have a wild animal in the football stadium. They sent that badger to our Henry Vilas Zoo and tried out a raccoon masquerading as a badger! In 1948 a UW-Madison art student created a badger costume and there was a contest to name the new official badger – and Bucky was born!

• We are honored to have a Bucky right in front of the hotel and we’ll let that one be a surprise but here are a few early favorites to get you excited for the hunt.

Since you now know some history of Bucky Badger you will appreciate Retro Bucky featuring images of the mascot through the years. Retro Bucky is in the new Alumni Park next to the Memorial Union. 

Bucky has a cranky face because they tried to replace him with a raccoon.

Speaking of the Union, there are a couple Buckys honoring the tradition of summer on the Terrace and its iconic chairs. Bucky at the Terrace is showing off his restful design at the bottom of State Street – not at the Terrace as his name suggests.

I could stare at him all day...

A more fitting placement is Bucky Come Se Picasso who is brightening up the entrance of the Chazen Museum of Art. He’s definitely a work of art. 

This style of art is Cubism, right? Anyone?