After five years and numerous top 100 festival awards, the Minto Redneck Games will no longer be there to “Get It Done.”
Last week, council made the decision to cancel the games, following a loss of roughly $8,500 on the event’s Saturday night concert.
Although Economic Development Committee manager Belinda Wick-Graham was welcomed to the table, it was with a heavy heart she presented her report on the status of the games and the results of the meeting held with the Redneck Games committee.
“My report basically sums everything up,” Wick-Graham said. “I have mixed feelings about this.”
She explained there were multiple meetings with the core committee, made up of 14 different community groups involved with the event, to try to come up with a decision.
There was not a solid consensus and if a few additional people had been at the meeting, Wick-Graham said it may have swayed the vote in a different direction.
“It was a very hard decision for everybody,” she said.
In its five year history, the event raised over $34,000 for local groups and organizations.
On three occasions, it was named a top 100 festival in the province and in its first year was named the number one festival in Ontario by CBC radio.
Mayor David Anderson said “What this festival has done is it has gotten the service clubs and volunteers working together for one good common goal.”
Anderson commended Wick-Graham and the committee. “They did a lot of work. We’re talking hours, and hours and hours of work.
“The problem is that it’s not getting the same kick or responses that it should be. We’ve advertised it, and did as much as we could to promote it.”
He suggested, “We might need to look at some other venue.”
Wick-Graham said another part of the issue is the new council needs to decide whether events are part of the Economic Development Officer’s mandate. While events tourism is economic development, she said some direction needs to come from council.
She added council will also need to think as to whether similar events are done in the future, and whether or not the town will take the lead.
During the meetings, Wick-Graham said various groups were asked if one would be willing to step up to oversee the event, but each felt they were too small to take on the project, even though most wanted continued participation if the event were to go on.
“A lot of them said, if this keeps going we want to be involved, but we can’t take it on ourselves.”
“That was a big factor in why it’s not going forward,” she explained.
Councillor Wayne Martin added that going through meetings during the summer, there was a recommendation to take a look at what economic development representatives are doing, and to have them be resource people.
Martin suggested a partnership with an existing group would likely be the best way to go.
Deputy-mayor Judy Dirksen said it seemed that if the town continued to lead the event, the other groups would still be on board.
Belinda agreed that was the opinion of the majority of groups.
“I think that would have tipped the vote.”
Wick-Graham considered one of the most interesting things, and touching things, was that many wanted to keep the event because they enjoyed working together.
“If we achieved nothing else, we had 24 groups come together and work together across Minto. That was an accomplishment in itself,” she said.
Now, she added, some groups are worried they will never get that momentum again.
“It kind of brings a tear to your eye.”
Dirksen agreed it was very much a unifying event. Wick-Graham said there are other venues which may work as well. Dirksen said most disappointing was the attendance at the Saturday evening of the games. For the fifth anniversary, organizers had staged a concert and fireworks.
She added she’d been part of the Redneck committee for the first few years of the event.
“Nothing we tried on the Saturday night has worked. It seemed to be a wash, no matter how big or small we made it,” she said.
Dirksen commented that personally she’d rather see a way to rework the event. “We may be just at the cusp of making it work. Having all those people work together is key. We’ve done a lot of the work to make it work.”She added the economic impact study shows really positive numbers.
Wick-Graham said that was interesting as well.
“I talked to the Minto Chamber of Commerce on Monday night about our recommendation to discontinue and they were really disappointed because this year the businesses in downtown Harriston reported their highest Redneck year ever.”
She said that in itself was interesting, considering attendance was down.
“They were disappointed to hear we were going to be losing this.”
Martin suggested if there is an event it can be tweaked. Wick-Graham said the intent was to be a tourist attraction and draw people to the area – and 60% of the people at the event were tourists.
“At the same time, there doesn’t seem to be local support for it. People don’t like being recognized as a redneck community.
“We’re not redneck, we’re just hosting an event. It was a challenge we faced from the beginning.
Councillor Barb Burrows voiced her appreciation of all the work that went into the event.
“I personally am very disappointed in the local support.”
She pointed to a similar instance of the sheep dog trials which were held in Palmerston for a few years.
“You wouldn’t see any local people there. They were coming from all over the place.”
While there were local people working at the event, Burrows said there was not the buy-in from the locals.
“We’re just wracking our brains how to get local people to attend. Maybe we just cut our losses or try something new,” she offered.
Wick-Graham said that was part of the idea.
“Five years might be a good time instead of going on for six.”
Mayor David Anderson said the issue was the event revenues were decreasing and the costs of operating were increasing.
“Whether you like it or not, we have to ask, if we have it again, how much money would we be willing to lose?”
At the same time, “When you get the response and support from the groups involved, there is definitely a need to create something – but it may not be the redneck games.”
Dirksen said the Redneck Games in 2010 generated a profit of $6,558, but the enhanced portion of the events – concert, fireworks, and sound system – resulted in a deficit of $8,390.
She noted several aspects of the event that were not dependent on the weather were actually up, including the Friday comedy night, the Saturday morning breakfast, camping and participation in the mud volleyball tournament, which was up 275%.
But attendance to the main event was down 25% and only 535 people attended the concert.
Wick-Graham said because of the Celebrate Ontario grant, the town was required to separate the items for the enhanced portion of the event.
Wick-Graham said at least Minto now owns a $5,000 outdoor sound system which could be utilized for other community events.
It’s already been used by the Harriston Fall Fair.
Wick-Graham commented that not as many people attended the concert as anticipated, and part of that might have been due to the Saugeen Summer nights held in the same location the weekend before.
“It was targeting the same crowd.”
The recommendation made to council was to discontinue the event.
“If at some time in the future, if there is an urge to regenerate it, that can happen.”
With regret, council approved the recommendation of the Redneck committee that the event be discontinued.
