Westerner Days Fair and Exposition has been cancelled after the North American Midway Entertainment (NAME) has notified Westerner Park that they will be unable to deliver on their contract and provide the midway this year. 

“It’s absolutely disappointing. It’s just another blow that we need to deal with but with challenge comes opportunity. We’re still focusing on it that way. It’s hard not to say that we don’t have a chip on our shoulder we do but we got something to prove and that’s what’s going to be so awesome about it when we get the chance to do it,” said Chief Executive Officer of Westerner Park, Mike Oleson. 

On June 18th, Westerner Park announced that they would be hosting a modified event and on June 23rd, NAME notified them that they would be unable to provide the midway. Westerner Days was originally scheduled to take place July 21st to July 25th. 

“To be clear, this was a decision not made by Westerner Park but unfortunately a decision that was made for us,” added Oleson. 

There will be no other Westerner Days events this year as the Midway was planned to be core of the event. It is still uncertain whether the fireworks planned for the event will go on. 

Oleson says the financial impact of the loss of the event is still being calculated. 

“We’re working towards really trying to understand the full scope of the financial impact of the events. With this change comes a lot of residual changes and impacts that we do have to measure. So we’re quantifying that as we speak. Otherwise, this would be a significant blow to our organization financially as we do rely on this event annually,” explained Oleson. 

Now, Westerner Park is setting their sights on organizing Canadian Finals Rodeo 2021 and Agri-Trade. They are expecting to host those events at limited capacity or full capacity by November. 

“We’re full steam ahead on CFR at this point. Considering the opens related to Stage Three in opening up the province we fully anticipate that we will at least be able to operate a modified CFR if not a full on and that’s what were planning towards,” added Oleson. 

Additionally, Westerner Park will be hosting Red Deer’s fireworks display on Canada Day. The gates will be open at 10:15 PM on July 1st.