The Lacombe and District Chamber of Commerce hosted a successful trade show over the weekend. Due to pandemic cancellations it was the first one held since 2019, and this year’s brought in huge crowd. 

“The trade show was incredible. We managed to get sold out about a week before and we estimated about two and a half thousand people came through the doors over those two days. It was just so wonderful because on the Saturday, we saw so many families come and we saw so many pets get cuddled and loved. We had I believe it was seven puppies in total get adopted out of the Trade Show are over those two days,” said Jeff Hangar, Executive Director of the Lacombe and District Chamber of Commerce.

This was Hangar’s first trade show as Executive Director but he insisted the success was not just his own.

“I can't take so much credit for that. Obviously, Helen (Helen Peck, Sales and Promotions for the Chamber) is the main person around and pulling those numbers in. I took over a wonderful legacy from Monica (Monica Bartman, Former Executive Director for the Chamber). I'm not taking any credit for that. That was all down to them and it was incredible this year. I'm hearing that this was the best year ever. My job is to try and build on that momentum to ensure that next year runs even better and runs even smoother,” explained Hangar.

One of the biggest challenges of this year’s show was for understaffed businesses to find the resources to host a booth at the show.

“They just don't have enough staff to be able to man the booths and to organize the booth. That was one of the biggest challenges on getting people in. Other than that, it was incredible. The community of Lacombe is fantastic, and they really came out to not only support their own business, but to support the show,” Hangar.

The challenge of staffing booths inspired the Chamber to offer the employment and recruitment booth.

Hangar says the success of the year was due in part to great weather and a strong desire for people to get out and be together.

“It was wonderful to see crowds again to see people come out to see other people. I think that the pedal action event worked really well. I think that most of it was that people wanted to get back to see people and that's exactly what they did this weekend,” he added.

Overall, he is very thankful to the volunteers, sponsors, businesses and non-profits that took part and made the Trade Show the success that it was.