By Troy Gillard and Sheldon Spackman

shareholders update

Westerner Park spends big with hopes of big future

May 28, 2019 | 7:49 PM

Westerner Park officials are confident they’ve gone through some short-term pain for long-term gain.

The 2018-19 fiscal year ending March 31 saw Westerner Park finish in the red to the tune of $290,217.

“We did not have a good year last year, that’s obvious by the numbers,” admits CEO Bradley Williams, who spoke to shareholders on Monday at Westerner Park’s annual general meeting.

“It’s obviously not something that we are either happy about or proud of. However, we had a lot of one-time things happen last year that negatively affected our bottom line.”

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Those costs included severance for former CEO Ben Antifaiff, accounting fees, as well as initial start-up costs to host the Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR) for the next 10 years.

“We are very confident that as we move into the current fiscal year, that we are already a month and a half into, things will be substantially different,” Williams predicts.

So different, in fact, that Westerner Park is forecasting a profit of $1.1 million for 2019-20.

Bradley Williams

Highlights over the past year include completion of the new 75,000 square foot Exhibition Hall, which celebrated its grand opening this month.

“We’re getting a lot of interest in it,” Williams says. “We’re getting a lot of events so we’ll see some significant revenue generation with that facility.”

To help secure events for the new facility, Westerner Park has hired a sale rep to canvas Calgary, Edmonton and other markets.

“We now have the capacity to handle events of a size we’ve never been able to handle before. It just opens up a whole new avenue for us. It’s positive for us, clearly, but it’s also positive for the city of Red Deer and central Alberta in that it will make our hotels and restaurants and bars and gas stations and all that busier.”

Another big move by Westerner Park was to launch its own catering service on January 1 of this year.

“We just felt that we wanted to take our catering in another direction and, quite frankly, have that control over the guest experience,” explains Williams.

About $1 million has been budgeted this year for upgrades to the 28-year-old Centrium.

“While the building looks great and our operations staff have done an amazing job of keeping it looking good it’s just time for a refresh,” Williams points out. “So we are working on some strategies and some plans as to how we’ll give it a refresh and an upgraded look.

“We have the world coming to our door in December 2020 and January 2021 (for the World Juniors) and we want to put on the best face we can to make sure people are impressed not only with our facilities and what we have to offer, but also Red Deer and central Alberta as a whole.”

The first year of the CFR at Westerner Park Centrium drew more than 43,000 fans and generated an estimated $20 million to the local economy. The Centrium also played host to the 2019 Canada Winter Games as well as seven sold-out Cirque du Soleil performances.

“We are working on more than two dozen additional events to come to Westerner Park this year,” Williams hinted. “That will be speakers, we’re looking at some comedy acts, country music, rock music and other forms of music.

“We’ve opened the book and said we want to do things differently, and we want to do more. We want to be known for offering good entertainment and good value in central Alberta.”