ESTEVAN - If Estevan felt dead last Friday night, it's only because much of the community went to check out the Southern Plains Co-op's Trail of Terror.
Dozens of vehicles lined up at Woodlawn Regional Park with families excited to get into Halloween mode at the co-op’s most horrific adventure of the year.
The co-op estimated they had between 1,500 and 2,000 people attending the three-hour event.
"It was super busy," said Brooke Spagrud with Southern Plains Co-op.
A number of co-op’s staff and volunteers from the community came together on Friday to turn Preddy Trails at Woodlawn into a real trail of terror. Spagrud said preparation for the big event started back in the summer. After a break last year, the committees had to make sure they had everything set up for the community, who’s eager to get out for a real Halloween experience.
"We started doing meetings for this back in July or August and setting up little subcommittees for organizing the whole Trail of Terror. There's actually a lot of moving parts to it. Taking inventory of what we have, buying more costumes, and more lighting, and more props and things like that to put up in the trail to transform it into the trail of terror," Spagrud said.
Volunteers started assembling the trail of terror a few days prior to the event, but most of the work was done on Friday. And all the effort put into it paid off, as the event turned out to be even more popular than before.
"From the feedback I received, it sounds like this was busier than previous years. I did hear somebody say that they saw lots of people from outside the community too. People came in from Midale and Carnduff and different other places to enjoy the Trail of Terror. So that was really good to see," Spagrud said.
"I think over the years people are starting to become more familiar with the event. Plus, we also had really, really great weather, which played into it a lot."
The event wouldn't happen without numerous organizations supporting local the co-op in their annual effort to make Halloween special for the community.
For the first time this year, they partnered with Limitless Disability Advocacy Group and started the event earlier to allow for a less scary and less crowded experience for people with disabilities or those with sensory issues.
"It gave people another opportunity to enjoy the trail before it got dark, before it got too scary, just to get out and even see and experience the Preddy Trails for the first time. We had a few people say that they've never actually been to the trails before so I think that was really great," Spagrud said.
The co-op served over 1,100 hotdogs to people coming throughout the night.
Every year the co-op changes the setup and has different spook stations, only carrying over the favourites. And if everyone enjoyed the event as much as Spagrud did, the next year will probably get only better.
"I can only speak for myself, but I had a lot of fun. I had a blast. I helped set up in the morning, and I enjoyed doing the setup and transforming the trails into it. But I also loved just seeing everybody enjoying themselves, and screaming, and laughing, and crying … So far, we've heard nothing but positive feedback. … It was just a really, really good day. And a really fun way for us to engage with the community," Spagrud said.
"And we've already talked about making it bigger next year, maybe expanding the trail so that the actual Trail of Terror might take up a little bit more of the pathways, and just changing it up a little bit to continue to be able to grow with the popularity of the event."
