One of the Foothills' enduring late-summer traditions is on hold until next year.
Organizers made the difficult decision to cancel the Okotoks Pro Rodeo, slated for the final weekend of August at the Millarville Ag Grounds, despite every effort made to make the 29th annual event a reality.
"What we said is if we can get everything put together, get an event plan such that it's acceptable to AHS that we would go ahead with it," said Trevor Reidy, Okotoks & Foothills Pro Rodeo Society marketing director. "AHS came back with, pretty much across the board rodeos at 200 spectators per performance and then there was a bunch of costs associated with that. We looked at that and we figured we could maybe do some pods that had up to 6 or 7 hundred people, but isolate into groups of 200, but the costs of that...
"We decided we would be better off to plan for 2021 and make it a celebration of not only getting through all this stuff, but also that it's our 30th year if you count this year as our 29th. We will try to make it bigger and better."
Rodeo events, particularly smaller scale shows, barrel racing jackpots and some pro bull riding shows, are still going amid the pandemic.
Making the call to cancel in late-July was done with no stone left unturned.
Reidy said planning and organizing the following year's event starts almost immediately after the rodeo weekend with the work really picking up around January. It's no overnight project, planning the logistics — from booking the infield crew, the entertainment and rodeo clown, marketing and advertising, to locking down sponsorship — is a painstaking process.
"It was really a tough decision, there's no doubt about that," Reidy said. "For the first part of the (pandemic) we weren't really busy after doing things, meetings and trying to figure out what the heck we should do and how do we do it? Then the CPRA (Canadian Professional Rodeo Association) came back and said 'here's some guidelines. We want all the rodeo committees to send a proposal to us as to what you think we should do.?'"
Reidy said a number of rodeo committees, including Okotoks, put their collective heads together and suggested a few proposals to the CPRA in June with the association reporting back they would consider them on a case-by-case basis. Some of the proposals included spectator-free events being broadcasted, or a drive-in theatre type of set-up.
"We were all trying to do whatever we could to make sure we could have a rodeo," Reidy said. "We just had to bite the bullet in the end and say no, let's go to next year and go from there."
The 2020 rodeo would have featured the ladies breakaway roping action for the second year in a row, with the Okotoks stop being one of the few shows counting towards points in the finals.
"It had changed. Because it hadn't been sanctioned by CPRA you could have it before or after your rodeo and CPRA put it in as an optional event this year," Reidy said. "Which meant that we could have put it in our rodeo so we had planned to have it as part of the rodeo.
"It's really good for the ladies and we will have it next year."
The Okotoks Pro Rodeo, both a CPRA and PRCA event with points up for grabs in both the Canadian Finals Rodeo and National Finals Rodeo in the United States, was going into its third year at the Millarville Ag Grounds. The venue has served organizers, sponsors, athletes and fans well for a variety of reasons, Reidy said.
"We have really great seating, we couldn't get enough seating indoors and we couldn't get enough seating anywhere so we ended up in Millarville because of their seating," he said. "Those are really great seats, every one of them faces into the arena, faces the bucking chutes, the timed events end in the right spot, smack in the middle of the grandstand.
"It allows us to put our parking for our contestants and our other people necessary to the rodeo, for example our grand entry girls, our clowns, we're able to put them on the infield and have parking designated for them. We've got a local 4H group that helps us with the parking and they do a darn good job. And outside of the racetrack we've got parking for our rodeo fans and it works really well."
More than that, it's a place for the rodeo to grow.
The 2021 event is scheduled for Aug. 27-29.
"It has pretty much everything we need," Reidy said. "If we do things the right way, advertise properly, let people know we're having a rodeo I think we will have our rodeo fans back. I almost think that people are going to be looking for an outlet, somewhere to go and do things and let's face it, our rodeo is good entertainment and it's not expensive for a family."
