For more than two decades, the Estevan Exhibition Association (EEA) has heard one recurring question: when will the Estevan Fair and the Estevan Rodeo be held on the same weekend once again?
EEA president Tamera Huber is excited to say the two popular events will on the same weekend in 2020.
When the EEA asked people about what they wanted to see at the fair each year, the answer was not about a certain ride or midway attraction or contest for the domestics show. It was to have the rodeo at the same time, creating a big event for the entire community.
“We’re going to be exhausted, but it’s going to be worth it,” said Huber.
The Estevan Fair will be held on June 4-7, while the rodeo will be June 6 and 7. With other events that will be happening in the Energy City that weekend, it promises to be one of the busiest weekends of the year in Estevan.
In addition to the midway that will be in town all four days of the fair, the domestics show is slated to be open every day, and Estevan Sings competition will be June 4 and 5. Estevan Sings was brought back for this year’s fair, and proved to be a hit, with competitors entered in the junior and senior divisions.
Huber suggested they might have a kid’s day at the fair, in which people can bring their younger children to the midway early. And they could have a midnight madness for older kids at the midway, too.
To get the fair and rodeo on the same weekend, a change had to occur. It has been a CCA rodeo since 2006, but this year it will be a Kakeyow Cowboys Rodeo Association (KCRA) tour.
“In order for us to bring in a rodeo at the same time as our midway, we had to fit into a schedule somewhere, and our rodeo chairperson, as soon as we found out that we were going to have a … four-day midway on a weekend, he went out looking for a rodeo we could fit into,” said Huber.
It’s a different kind of rodeo, Huber said, as it will be more family-oriented.
“Normally with a rodeo, you’re going to see them roll in and then they’re gone, because they’re going to the next rodeo. With KCRA, they’re going to roll into our city on Friday night, and they’re going to be with us for the weekend, and there’s going to be a couple hundred people coming in with that rodeo,” said Huber.
The age range is from peewee competitors to seniors, which means a type of rodeo that people haven’t seen before.
A slack performance will be in the morning of June 6, and the first main rodeo performance will start in the afternoon. Another performance will happen the following day.
Happening in conjunction with the fair and rodeo is a concert at Affinity Place on June 6 through the #Redneck music tour. It will be headlined by Canadian country music star Gord Bamford and also features Saskatchewan’s Jess Moskaluke. Several other musicians are set to appear that night as well.
Once the concert is finished, the rodeo cabaret will happen at the exhibition grounds.
“We’ll have Rustic playing,” said Huber. “They played at our cabaret this year, and they were amazing. Everyone enjoyed them.”
The parade will also likely happen that weekend, and Huber hopes that having the rodeo and the fair on the same weekend will provide a boost to that event.
“We’re hoping to see a lot more people and businesses in the parade. I think it’s going to make people happy.”
At the beginning of December, the exhibition association held an ideas session to brainstorm some concepts on what they would like to see happen during the weekend, and now they’re trying to implement as many of those suggestions as possible.
“We’re not going to be able to pull everything together this year, but the more we can bring this year, the more we can bring next year,” said Huber.
Additional volunteers will also be needed for the weekend. They have their board members who are always there for the EEA, and others can be approached again.
“We have other groups that we’ve worked with in the past that will most likely ask about coming back. We’ll be reaching out.”
Also a priority for them is to have higher attendance for the events. The presence of Estevan Sings this year was a big draw, and attracted singers from as far away as Fort Qu’Appelle.
“Going into a weekend, it’s most likely we’re going to see a lot of people from the smaller communities coming into our city as well.”
Huber said a lot of work needed to happen to get the fair and rodeo on the same weekend. It had to fit in with the midway schedule, and West Coast Amusements came to the exhibition association at the end of the fair and said they were willing to offer a four-day fair starting on a Thursday night.
“We were just overjoyed by that, because that’s what we needed to start with the idea of bringing everything back together was to get our midway into a weekend,” Huber said.
