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‘Battle of the Rockies’ future still to be determined

Nov 15, 2018 | 11:06 AM

The fate of the ‘Battle of the Rockies’ chuckwagon event is still up in the air.

Stakeholders and community members attended a meeting Wednesday night to discuss how to avoid having the entire event derailed due to rental fees increasing for use of the North Saskatchewan River Park.

The event has happened in August for the last nine years in Rocky.

Brad Smith, President of the Rocky Mountain Chuckwagon Association, says it would be disappointing to see it become unviable at its current site.

“For local businesses, it brings in a lot of revenue. The 36 wagon families say they spend between $1000 and $2000 per week for meals and fuel and groceries,” he says. “That doesn’t include the fans of course. We had 8,236 go through the gate last year and there were 175 campers registered.”

Smith adds that with the economy being down the last several years, any profits they’ve made from the event have been minimal. Therefore, any increase, he says, would be the event’s downfall in Rocky.

Smith says they expect to know more by the end of the month, but one thing is for and that’s fans do not want to have to pay more for tickets.

The ‘Battle of the Rockies’ is currently an event on the World Professional Chuckwagon Association circuit.