Whoop Up Days in 2018. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Whoop-Up Days cancelled, Farmers’ Market might still be good to go

Apr 24, 2020 | 10:50 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Lethbridge’s largest annual summer festival will not be happening in 2020.

Exhibition Park CEO Rudy Friesen says, due to the COVID-19 pandemic they were left with no choice but to cancel Whoop-Up Days this year.

On Thursday, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced that mass gathering restrictions that prohibit gatherings of more than 15 people apply to all summer events and festivals.

“The Alberta Health Services decision is one that we fully support, as it is in the best interest of the health and safety of the residents of our community. Even though we are in the business of mass gatherings, now is not the time,” says Friesen.

He adds that Whoop-Up Days is by far the largest event they put on and directly and indirectly employes many people.

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“Typically, in terms of admissions from the community, we’re in that 30,000-40,000 [range]. On top of that, you have all the people in the community that support the Midway, we’ve got our trade show and food vendors on Festival Street, and so, it’s quite a number of people that are involved in the production of the event.”

As a result of this decision, Exhibition Park’s facilities will remain closed to the public and all scheduled on-site summer events and gatherings are either cancelled or postponed.

One potential exception is the Farmers’ Market as the food portion of it is considered an essential service by the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture. The challenge will be to balance providing an essential service while ensuring the public can stay safe and following provincial public health guidelines.

“With nothing else going on, we do have the potential to spread the vendors out over more than just one facility – that would allow us to distance our vendors more appropriately than we otherwise would be able to.”

Officials are looking into potentially limiting the number of vehicles that can enter the Exhibition Park gate, and again, the number of people who are then going into the building.

He says they could try to follow similar models to what many grocery stores are doing.

“The grocery store in itself is one vendor, whereas when you think about a farmers’ market, it takes a compilation of 70 or so vendors to provide the product that you would find at a grocery store if you know what I mean, so therein lies a part of the challenge.”

Further details on the Farmers’ Market will be released in the coming weeks.

Friesen thanked their stakeholders, partners, exhibitors, and guests for their ongoing support and understanding.

“This is most definitely a challenging time, and the safety of our community continues to be our priority. We will patiently wait until we can once more bring our Region together through Agriculture, Entertainment and Commerce.”

Following Dr. Hinshaw’s remarks this week, both the Calgary Stampede and Edmonton’s K-Days festivals were cancelled as well. More details here.