By Scott Roblin

Canalta Centre apologizes after Wingapalooza event ends abruptly

Jun 9, 2019 | 8:20 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Canalta Centre has taken to Facebook to issue a formal apology to attendees at this past weekend’s ‘Wingapalooza’ festival.

According to various people attending Saturday night’s wing eating festival, vendors completely ran out of wings less than an hour into the event.

Absolutely terrible. Got 8 wings before EVERYONE ran out. It wasn’t even 7:00 yet. Event goes till 8:45. Never again.

— Dakota Rayel (@MissDRV) June 9, 2019

That left many of the vendors scrambling as they were supplied the wings by the Canalta Centre, who issued a statement on Facebook later that night.

In the post, the Canalta Centre stated they had, “underestimated the amount of wings that would be consumed due to the growing popularity of this event.”

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According to Canalta Centre general manager Tammy Sweeney, it was a miscalculation during the ordering of the wings that resulted in the shortage.

“We banked on about 30 wings per person last year and that was the plan this year,” said Sweeney. “It was human error is what it was. The wrong information was passed on to a member of our team who ordered the wings. It was not broken down into the number of wings to confirm that 30 wings per person was actually what was ordered.”

Sweeney added once the shortage became more apparent, they quickly determined that it wouldn’t have been possible to bring in enough product in such a short time.

“The crowd was getting quite agitated,” she said. “At some point in the evening we made the call to basically say, ‘You know what, the event has been more popular this year and we have run out of wings, this was not the promise we made to you and we apologize. We will be ending the evening.’”

They also offered an apology to both the customers and vendors that had invested money into the event, saying they were requesting a “second chance.”

In response, all tickets purchased for Wingapalooza are being refunded at the point of purchase, while those who present their Wingapalooza tickets at the Canalta Centre Box Office are being issued gift cards for the concession.

Sweeney said they make an inexcusable mistake and need to earn the trust of their client base once again.

“We have run successful events before and we will run them again,” she said. “We need to restore confidence in the community that we can run an event. This was human error and as with any case of error in any business that’s run, you learn more from your mistakes sometimes than your successes. This mistake will never, ever be made again.”

This was the second year of operation for the annual wing tasting festival.