Whoop-Up Days smashes attendance records

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 31, 2023.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Fair-goers take a spin on one of the rides at the midway during this year's Whoop-Up Days at the Lethbridge and District Exhibition.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The numbers are in and this year’s attendance for Whoop-Up Days broke multiple records, not only historically but also when it comes to a six-year average.

A total of 77,263 visitors attended the five-day fair last week. That attendance is more than 160 per cent higher than the six-year average, and well-above the modern high attendance of 37,536 in 2019, as well as the historical reported record of 69,964 in 2007.

Saturday set a new single-day Whoop-Up Days record with 23,310 visitors.

Lethbridge and District Exhibition CEO, Mike Warkentin spoke to media Wednesday and said the attendance was higher than they ever expected and some lessons were learned from the experience.

“Personally I think we’ll have to do a better job of managing line control in the future and understanding the guest experience from the minute someone enters a line, as well as things like washrooms. It was just more people than we anticipated or had ever seen when we looked at a six-year average of around 30,000 people,” said Warkentin.

He said having more than double the average attendance on record created some operational challenges but his team managed the situation very well.

“I think the team did an exceptional job of working through those challenges as they came up, and ultimately led to a very successful event with a lot of public support behind it,” said Warkentin.

Attendance also increased dramatically in the second year of the Lethbridge & District Pro Rodeo, with 5,116 attendees over the three-day event, up from 3,224 in 2022.

“I think there’s three main contributing factors to that. I think the first one was obviously the free admission… and then the other two factors that played in I think there was a lot of curiosity about the Agri-food Hub and Trade Centre and literally thousands of people got the opportunity to see and experience this venue, and lastly, we couldn’t have had better weather for all five days,” said Warkentin.

He said that based on the success of having a free admission, the chances of that continuing in the future are very high.

“We need to see how everything plays out here over the coming weeks, but the chances are that is something that we would look to continue,” said Warkentin.

He said they are also looking forward to expanding the Whoop-Up Days Marketplace as this year they did not have access to the whole area where it took place.

“That’s a program we will look to grow, both from a commercial exhibitor standpoint, people actually selling goods, but also from what we really want to see in a traditional fair model,” said Warkentin.

He said the Exhibition is already in the planning stages for next year’s Whoop-Up Days and they are looking forward to bringing an even bigger event once the Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre is fully completed.

“As we see these numbers grow, I think the opportunity to bring people into the community who don’t traditionally go to Lethbridge also continues to grow, and something we’ll definitely be looking at is how we encourage more people to come to Lethbridge during the five days event,” said Warkentin.

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