There’s still unknowns surrounding a permanent extreme sports track at the Bonnyville Rodeo Grounds.
As discussions regarding the plan are in the beginning phases, Billie Jo Aasen, Mudfest producer, explained where the project is currently, and a few of the issues they’re facing as they figure out the details for the location.
“Where we have it situated right now, we’re basically back pretty much onto what we call our main show site, where we do all our vendors and concerts,” she explained to Town of Bonnyville council during their special meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 15. “We also have to move the dirt over and then build a permanent track, which we plan to build quite a bit larger of a track so that down the road we can hopefully, as we become a little bit more financially stable, do more events on those grounds.”
Not having to rebuild the area each year, which includes a mud racing track and a tractor pulling area, should cut down on costs for Mudfest and the Bonnyville 4x4 Club.
“With moving the track, there are quite a few variables right now, and we’re just trying to figure out what our next best step is and how to make it financially viable so that it can be a permanent location for racing, which is huge for us because we don’t want to have to move it. It’s a lot on our sponsors every year, so once we have that I think it’s going to be a lot smoother moving forward and hopefully we can come to a long-term contract for the concert rental portion with the Bonnyville Ag Society,” Aasen detailed.
In order to assist with construction of the facility, Mudfest requested $7,500 from the town to go toward the estimated $20,000 cost.
“That’s a sheer guesstimate of what it could cost for fencing, gas, getting dirt, clay, and everything else that we need,” Aasen noted. “We won’t really know exactly what we get sponsored and what we will actually need until we get into it.”
Although Mudfest would be footing the bill for the construction of the track, the Bonnyville 4x4 Club would be handling the day-to-day operations for the facility.
“As far as people renting it out, it would be the club, or it would be Extreme Mudfest coming in and promoting that alongside the Bonnyville 4x4 Club. We haven’t fully worked out those (variables) yet, but the goal is to do more events at the grounds. But, as far as expenses goes, that does fall under us because we’re the primary user of it,” detailed Aasen.
For the 2020 event, Aasen outlined a couple of requests for contributions from the town.
Along with the donation of the ball fields for their baseball tournament that runs in conjunction with the event, Mudfest also asked the town for an additional $7,500 for marketing as 2019 was the last year they received funding from Travel Alberta.
Aasen described 2019 as a critical year for the event due issues from 2018.
“All-in-all, we were pretty happy with how things landed. Attendance-wise we continue to grow, and the one thing that was really staggering to us was the amount of teams that applied to play in the ball tournament,” she exclaimed, adding there were over 70 groups that submitted teams.
Last year, the event brought in just over $623,000, however, they carried over debt from 2018 that resulted in an overall deficit of $39,250.
“We had significant rain, full-out rain on the Saturday, and it was extremely heavy on the Friday, and we also had Theory of a Deadman cancel a week and a half before the show, which affected our (sales) heavily. A majority of them come the week-of, so that was pretty catastrophic to us (in 2018),” Aasen explained.
Coun. Lorna Storoschuk wanted clarification on where the money Mudfest was requesting from the town would be going.
“On (your presentation information), I noticed that there’s $17,500 for donation to local charities. You’re asking us for $15,000, but you’re taking and donating $17,000 to the community,” she noted.
Aasen explained local groups have their members volunteer during Mudfest, and a donation is made as a thank you.
Council will discuss the request during their 2020 budget deliberations.
