The B.C. Northern Exhibition is heading into their busy season with more confidence than the BCNE has had in years.
The exhibition's board chair Alex Huber said the confidence is more than a feeling. Three cornerstones were recently set in place that gives them the ability to thrive long into the future. The first was clearing their debt, the second was getting the gaming grant they had applied for and the third was signing a new lease agreement with the City of Prince George.
"I know a lot of organizations have not gotten the money they were hoping for from provincial gaming and I know it's been painful times for some not-for-profits who used to get gaming money and now they're having trouble with those funds, but we got the $70,000 we asked for and it was absolutely critical for us," said Huber. "Someone within the provincial government went to bat for us, because we dropped our gate prices down a few years ago, we just had to make going to the fair affordable for the average family and the price of a ticket was getting too high. We slashed our prices. That meant we needed the gaming grant more than ever."
The prices went down, but that meant attendance should go up, at least in theory. Huber said subtle things like a few rain showers or cooler temperatures have an effect on the box office, so building a fall fair that's exciting for the community has to be founded on other sources of income than the turnstiles.
It has been working. In 2015, the organization faced a debt of about $96,000 but heading into the 2017 edition of the BCNE, their ledger ink is written in black once again. Their energies can now be devoted to improving the activities, amenities and atmosphere of this annual extravaganza.
That got a significant boost in a whole other way, said Huber, and it came as a bit of a surprise. He said the relationship between the BCNE organization and the City of Prince George had been somewhat rocky in recent years, but "there was a really huge corner that got turned, and I've got to say, the City of Prince George really stepped up to the plate for us. Everything is changed now. Our future looks amazing, thanks to the help they've given us."
The help was signing the BCNE to a 10-year lease agreement for the currently vacant rodeo grounds.
"We've been on a year-to-year lease, but to access a lot of grants and to make proper plans, we had to have ownership or show we had a long-term lease," Huber said.
"CN Centre staff, city hall staff and mayor and council heard us and understood our needs, and they understood that we could make some pretty amazing moves if we had that contractual relationship in place. Ian Wells and Rob Whitwham (senior managers at City Hall) really went out of their way and worked hard on behalf of our vision for the future."
The vision was not just ideas and dreams. The BCNE board was receiving calls of interest and pitches for different events that would have greatly enhanced the visitor experience at the fair, but they had to be turned down due to lack of facilities.
"The fair was really being held back, but watch us now," he said.
The other effect of the lease, the grant and the solvency is a renewed spirit of commitment from the board. Huber said he felt lucky to have all positions filled around his large executive table, and in this critical lead-up to the
Aug. 17-20 main event. Their annual spring fair, an appetizer event, happens May 12-14.
