News
Sports
Weather
Classifieds
Opinions
Obituaries
Special Reports
Archives
Photo Gallery

Home
About Us
FAQ
Links
Advertising

Carstairs Courier
Didsbury Review
Innisfail Province
Mountain View Gazette
Olds Albertan
Sundre Round Up

Commercial Printing
Great West Newspapers

The Olds Fair & Rodeo saw its largest grossing gate receipts ever on Aug. 12.

"Our expectation actually was that our gate receipts would be significantly down," said Tami Gardner, general manager of the Olds Agricultural Society.

This year, the society changed the price from a $13 all-inclusive package to a general grounds $5 admission with patrons offered the choice of paying for what they wanted to see.

Gardner said the actual attendance numbers would not be available until later in the week but based on the gross deposits both Saturday and Sunday were pleasant surprises.

"I think that change has been received extremely positively," she said.

Rain kept attendance low Friday but the sky was clear the remainder of the weekend.

The lack of midway entertainment brought in some complaints, she said, but the monster truck rides and thrill shows kept crowds entertained.

"Those folks that took the chance ... were pleasantly surprised to find there were a number of things for children to do."

Gardner said that while fair organizers will look into including a midway in next year's fair they will also keep the additional entertainment brought in by enterprising individuals.

"The thrill shows such as the high-dive act and the extreme motocross bikes were well received."

She is grateful to the volunteers and community groups who assisted with overcoming the challenges presented by this year's fair.

"We were somewhat taken aback at the 40,000 gallon water requirement for our high-dive act which is not a little amount of water," she said. "The volunteer fire department rose to that challenge and came out on their own time and got that amount of water piped in."