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By Chris Brown

Decision expected next week

Excitement around Stampede office after province’s summer plan

May 27, 2021 | 4:38 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede officials are riding a little higher in their saddles today.

When the province announced its Open for Summer plan on Wednesday, talk around the office went from the idea of a very quiet summer to the excitement of potentially a large-scale Stampede.

Stampede general manager Kara Brake says it’s been a roller-coaster.

“We’re excited that we can potentially do some events, bring people back to the grounds. But there’s definitely a lot of hecticness in it as well,” she says. “There’s a lot of things operationally that we need to figure out how we do some of the planning. We’re in a short time frame so there’s definitely some logistical things we need to look at. The office is buzzing for sure. We’re getting lots of calls which is exciting.”

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The province’s Open For Summer plan has Alberta fully open in early July, and if all goes according to plan the Calgary Stampede will go ahead with few changes from past years.

That event is three weeks before our city’s Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede, set for July 28-31.

“We’re working with all of our contractors so that’s the midway provider, CPRA for the rodeo and some of the other organizations that we work with,” says Brake. “And so I’m sure there’s going to be lots of conversations in the next few days in regards to what their plans are as well, but we are hoping that some of those events that we typically would do in a year we’re still able to do if not all of them. But we’ll have to see at this point.”

She says those groups are talking themselves about what their summer looks like, and the Stampede hopes to get answers from them in the next few days

The Stampede board of directors is meeting Wednesday, and Brake says they hope to make an official announcement late next week about what Stampede will look like.

Canada Day

Before Stampede comes Canada Day, planning for which the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede has taken over.

Brake says there will for sure be a Canada Day celebration. On July, the province will likely still be in Stage 2 of the new reopening plan, where there are still limits on gatherings and festivals.

“We’re going to wait and see where restrictions are at as to how much we can do, how little we can do. Our committee is now meeting so we’ve got some plans in place with how it would look if there are restrictions in place and then what it looks like if there’s not.”