Shaun Newman Podcast - #90 - Mike Sidoryk

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

In total he has worked for the Lloydminster Exhibition Association for 39 years. He has seen it all as the ex hosts the fair, PBR, CPCA Finals, Agri-Visions, weddings, community events pretty much you name it & it has been hosted by the Lloydminster Exhibition. We discuss his career and the stories he's been apart in since starting his career back in 1981.  Enjoy.    All episodes can also be found at shaunnewmanpodcast.com   New guests every Monday & Wednesday

Mike's at Arc, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Hey folks, welcome back to the podcast. Happy Hump Day. Thanks for tuning me in on your busy day. We got episode 90, 9-0 today. Man, is it just cruise along? Episode 100 is just, I can almost taste it. That's how close it is. July 29th, mark that one down in your calendar.

She's going to be epic. Epic, I'm saying it right now. Now, before we get on to today's show, Let's welcome in some sponsors, all right? So first off, Lauren and the team at Art and Soul, welcome aboard. They took a look at some of the frames I got in the old podcast studio. Let's just say yours truly is not a framer. I did my best, folks.

I did my best. But Lauren is the best. She's going to help turn these into a piece of artwork. And I was walking through her shop. She's got some cool stuff in there. And she was telling me all the different heirlooms. memorabilia that gets brought in there the jerseys heck we should probably just give

her a mic she could jot down the stories for us but if you got something sitting you're like one of my buddies they got them sitting in the closet you know you got something signed a jersey out someday I'll get to it stop worrying about it and get down there she's open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 501639 street or 780808

6313 it's more than just a frame folks it's a story SMP billboard across from the FAA now we can't get to it of all this freaking railroad construction. Like, are you kidding me? Like, only in Lloyd. It's either a train at noon hour or now, right,

they just shut down the entire road. Somewhere there's a city of Lloyd guy listening to this going, I know, I know. We'll get it back up and running. Well, here I'm giving you the call. Let's get her back up and go on. But thanks to Read and Wright and Dina Wanler for that mint-looking billboard.

It looks sharp. If you're down that way, just across from the UFA is the SMP billboard, and it is sharp. So thanks again. Gartner Management. Housing the podcast. If they're a Lloydminster-based company specializing in all types of rental properties to help meet your needs, whether you're looking for a small office like moi, or you need something a little bigger, maybe say 6,000 square feet, give Wade Gartner a call 780808, 5025.

How about Mr. Maz Entertainment? He wants to know if you're, wants to let you know if you're looking to plan any intimate ceremony for a wedding, or maybe you're like myself and your parent, you know, you're starting to pull your hair out. I know we got some things opening up, but, you know, you want something for the kids to do. Well, he's got some backyard entertainment, maybe a movie under the stars,

maybe your PS4 or Xbox guy, we can have that argument later. He can hook that up for you too. And you can play some games out in the back. Check out his Facebook page, Mazz Entertainment, or his Instagram for video and pictures, because it's pretty cool what he's doing. Now, give them a call 780214, 2920. Kenny Rutherford, Rutherford Appraisal Group.

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I promise you won't be disappointed. If you're interested in advertising on the show, visit Sean Newman Podcast.com. Just send me an email. We'd love to get you involved with the show. We've got lots of different options. And I want to find something that can work for the both of us. Now, here is your T-Barr-1, Tale of the Tape.

Originally from Lloydminster, Alberta, he started his career with the Lloyd-Mister exhibition in 1981 as the maintenance man. By 1985, he was the agricultural manager, and fast-forward just four short years. And he becomes the general manager, which he has been for the past 30 years. In total, he's worked for the Lloyd X for 39 years. His group has overseen events from the Lloyd Fair, the CPCA finals,

Agrovision's, PBR Winter Classic, full sales, etc. 900 activity days in a year with over 200,000 visitors annually. I'm talking about Mike Siddoric. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast. Tonight I'm joined by Mike Sadoric, a 39-year guy of the Lloyd X.

and association. Well, thank you for bringing me on your podcast. Yeah, I know you're giving me a rough time that all you see in here is hockey, but I'm super excited for this. You've been a part of Lloyd and area history for a long time now, and bringing people together and showcasing a lot of what Lloyd has to offer and area. And so I think you're going to be a very interesting sit down. And I don't add you pegged, if you can believe it, a while back,

even before you announced your retirement. went, oh, now he's announcing his retirement. Now I definitely got to get him on because now he can spill all the beans. He's got nothing to hide it for anymore. Oh, absolutely. You know, there's always lots of great stories people can tell about their lifestyle and their life histories and stuff. So, you know, this community means a lot to me.

And it's an amazing organization. And Lloydminster just, it's been, you know, it's been a long ago. And it's been fun and amazing. Well, let's rewind the clock. back to your early days. Did you know, like, did you have high thoughts coming out of high school? Like, hey, I want to do X? Or did you just kind of slide in and all of a sudden you're working there? You know, actually, it's kind of a funny story. Back, my mom worked for the association many, many years ago. And so she, you know, let me just drink that through again. Let's try that one over.

See, we're going to have to do this. You know, I told you, this is going to have to be a little bit of editing, Sean. See, I'm going to cut him off right now, I guess. He thinks I'm going to go back and throw an edit all this. He's, sorryly mistaken. This is a podcast. I'm on for the ride. Oh, yeah, now you tell me that little story, right on.

So actually, the history kind of begins back. I was about 12, 13 years old when I first started working part-time for the association. I worked with Dick Jones back in the early days. Dick was my mentor for many, many years. Learned lots of great skills from Dick. But I started 12 years old. My very first memory I have with the association is I actually whitewashed the race horse barn.

Race horse barn. You know, and you used white lie. I went to work. We had a brand new pair of jeans. You know, good new pair of gloves. And I was excited to go make some cash. I think I was making either 50 cents an hour back then. But, you know, when you're 12, that's a lot of money.

and you know by the time I was done the first day my gloves were eaten in bits with the white lie and my blue jeans new pair of blue jeans were chewed right up so all that money earned just went down the drain by it you know absolutely you know so I helped out in the summers for a few years like doing helping it fair cutting grass cleaning toilets picking garbage you know kind of doing a little everything kind of helping out and had some fun mom was working there at the time like I said and it was a good opportunity to generate a little bit of summer money. And then I'd help out at the bullseil, running tickets to the buyers. And I did a few other odd little jobs off and on.

And then, you know, kind of hit the fun life with a teenager. And, you know, I was really more interested in driving truck and driving my truck. Absolutely, having some fun. So I kind of had some part-time jobs, worked for Foster Sports Center. And then I worked for midway distributors kind of just in the... Did you work back then when Shep was at Foster's? No. No, not Shep.

Oh, Shep, they were at the downtown store with Brad Payne. I worked on the Highway 16 one across from Midway Distributors. Okay, okay. So it was where the boats and the quads and all that stuff was at. So it was pretty good. It was fun. Did that through school. And, you know, then I started working in the oil patch a little bit coming out of school.

What are you doing in the oil patch? Well, I was a swamper on a truck, worked for Totran. I worked in their yard, driving one of their pork. to load and unload pipe. I did a day or two with Bob Kerr with border trucking and didn't think the rig moves were kind of my game. And then I started with Totran and had some fun there. It was good, it worked hard.

And then of course, back in those days, the oil patch kind of tanked. So I kind of started there in my full-time career with a tanked oil patch and look, well and behold, I'm ending my career in a tanked oil. career in a tanked oil patch scenario so what do you have a interesting goal so then I said I'm going to stay there for three months how did you how do you compare the tanking back then to now is it even similar very similar from my memory back in those days very similar this is worse it seems now like a year ago two years ago it was I'd say about the same but now she's gone way too long too far too deep it's very more debilitating for this region and community than back then.

So yeah, but very much similar to the timelines. So I said, I'll come help out because my mom phoned and said, hey, Dick, we need some help down here at the grounds and I was needing a job. So I said, well, okay, I'll come a few months and 39 years later. Later. Still there. What was your first job when you started back at? Oh, I think it was in the fall just before the fall stock show,

kind of getting ready for the cattle sales and the cattle shows and season that we did back in those days. We did everything a little bit more by hand, though. We might have had a John Deere tractor then, or that might have been later. But yeah, we would clean the barns with pitchforks in the back old mail smiths truck. So we did lots of things a lot differently than we do now. Do you ever laugh at kids now that say they got it tough? Absolutely.

The one thing is, is I can always say to everybody, you know, I have done absolutely every job in this place from start to finish. What was the worst job? I'll probably clean in the toilets. Cleaning a toilet's journey fair. That was never a fun job. Hundreds and hundreds of people, you know, and you're a young guy, and thinking, ooh, I don't know.

But that was probably the worst. That's going to be an easy thing as a manager, though, and someone's complaining, going, listen, you want to talk about something? I'll tell you about cleaning the toilets, when 100 people and 20 of them can't hit it. Yeah, you know, there's always lots of good stories to tell with that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's nice to say, well, you know what, I've done that job. And most of them, some believe you and some don't,

so sometimes you have to reshow them. Do you ever think at any point of trying something different or once you got in the group of it, away you went? Because you just don't hear of many people. Well, I shouldn't say that. Today's generation, you don't hear many people. Back in your generation, there was more people that stayed with a certain occupation for an extended time. That's correct.

You know, it's like every job. You know, every once in a way you think, man, should I be doing this anymore? And, you know, this industry gets in your blood. It's, you know, it's a non-profit organization. You know, they never pay high wages and high salaries. But there's a whole bunch of other reasons to be there. It's the community support. It's the comradeship.

You gain the friendships of all the people you meet over 39 years across North America and half the world. So there's more to a career than cash. It's the experiences, the life experiences. And to me, that's always been the fulfilling part of this job. It's just the people you meet, the people you work with, the great board, the great staff, all the memories. You can't beat it. You mentioned all the people you meet,

and I think I read, you guys see a foot traffic of more than 200,000 people through the facilities these days. Where are some of the unique people that you've met that you're like, man, I would have never thought you'd walk through this door.

Oh, I guess had a chance to meet Steve, Harper a couple of times who come visit our facilities a lot of our our premiers have been through our facilities that's been a tremendous experience I was a it was a great opportunity I've toured some delegations from China from Mongolia through the grounds and Russia what do they got to say when they come over and see it Mongolia for instance amazing they just they see the facilities they see that what we do for the agriculture industry and they're amazed at how it works and the benefits that they see.

It's a new, they do things differently. They have their fairgrounds over there as well, but just it's different than a lot of it's horse racing, a lot of it's that type of events and activities. So, you know, it's just, it's a new way of life. They like to come and see the agriculture equipment, the cattle, the, you know, the horses so they can take some of the bloodlines back and help improve their breeds and their stocks. You probably get to tour around different areas then. Yeah, I've been to a lot of the states for some of the, mostly on the California seat and board because we belong to an association there

when we've toured around some conventions down in that area. I work, you know, commuter, Kate Well, the International Association Affairs and Exhibitions and our Canadian Association Affairs and Exhibitions and Alberta and Saskatchewan, Manitobas. We get to know and tour around a fair bit. I get to know lots of people everywhere. What facility have you walked into and went, holy moly, this is a place?

Well, the most Atlanta. Atlanta? Yeah. What was it about Atlanta? Well, we went to a conference called IAPA. It happened to be in the area, so I popped in, and it's an international association of theme parks convention, which is very similar to our fair industry. And it was, I couldn't believe the facility.

Like it was four stories high, meeting rooms every 20 feet. There must have been 20,000 people in that facility that day was huge. So, you know, there's some pretty amazing structures and facilities down there. There's the Georgia Dome that was, they had a midway in the infield. So, you know, you get kind of intrigued and enthused with all of that type of activities. Disney World is another exciting place for me because I love the fair. It's the year-round fair style. So I like to sit there and watch people see how they do things.

It's an amazing way to learn when you can just sit and observe and watch how other areas thrive and prosper and how they treat people and how they move people and how it all works. You know, when you talk about going to different places and seeing how they do it, what's an idea or maybe there's several that you watch somebody else do from a farmland? Geez, that's brilliant. Maybe I should try that back in Lloyd. Well, there's lots of different types of shows we would bring in, or here's the best better way to run the stock show,

here's some added classes you can do, or here's some, there's lots of benefits we get from all the other industries, people we work with and talk to. We would have joint meetings with all the Agmen, Ag society people that run ag shows, across Western Canada. We'd all sit together, talk about better ways to improve a lot of the events and activities we do. So it's never-ending learning. And you can't get out of there in a day without learning something new or supporting something new within the region. But not one thing that you

just, you know, I was like, huh, I hadn't seen it like that before. Like, geez, they're, I don't know. I can't even think of an example. But I'm just sitting there and you mentioned Disneyland. You watch a year-round theme park. Maybe they have ways of speeding things up or just how they have things positioned. So it just flows better. Yeah. You know, it's hard to kind of pick all those things right out.

But I know one thing we worked with the Midway about was trying to, you know, how do we make the flow more effective for the kids to the older kids to kind of so that they can all enjoy their space without doing a total intermingle and everybody is not walking on top of each other. There's lots. It's hard to kind of pinpoint one specific thing. You know, the showcase trade shows is one example.

We started developing a farm and ranch show back in, I think it was around 86, and it slowly morphed into the home and garden huge trade show for us now. We fill all the buildings. Another event, I've got to say, we probably took from a, was our, is our no current, agarvision show. Okay. It started as cattleman's corral. We developed that partnership with a good friend of ours with Sidney Palmer and we kind of modeled it from the Camerals Bull Congress and it's now changed and morphed into an amazing two-day convention style agriculture trade show that helps

benefit this whole region. Education trade show seminars, great speakers. You know those are just some of the things we've done that that we've modeled after other deviance and activities that are huge and beneficial. You know, in your time, I was wondering, what did the original, like when you started, was it just a couple of buildings? Was it small and it just morphed? Absolutely.

Or how, or has it been a slow burn and it just kind of adds on a little bit here, there, and there. Little of both. Little of both. Like back when I first started, we had, when I was doing before, of course, 12 to 14, 15 years old type thing, the Stockade building was just being built. It had just been built.

Like 72 it was constructed, so I started helping out a few years later. That was the biggest building there. Beside it was the old curling rank, which we called the Coliseum and went to the J.C. Tucker building. 79, we built, rebuilt the grandstand because the old one that was there was a roof grandstand, an old wood structure. We used to go and play in that and have lots of fun. We had two old horse barns just kind of back

where the Saskatchewan building is now. And then we had two blue cattle barns, which we call the time barns, and they were just right across from where the wash rack scale room building is. So there's been lots of change, lots of history, where the office, The Wild Roses now, there's three buildings there.

One was a home arts building, one was a craft building, and one was the office building. So some of those old pictures, it's fun to go back and look at and say, oh yeah, that was there when I was there. So, you know, and look at what has changed to now. We have 110,000 square feet under roof. The board has been very strong and progressive in supporting the development of the association

and making sure that we can provide a great source for the whole community. So it's the vision from the board that we all worked together on, we've done a great job in achieving what we needed to do to support this region. We're probably one of the bigger ag societies for community our size in pretty much most of Western Canada. When you took over the job, the general manager title, what was, you're sitting in the big fan.

chair, if there is a big fancy chair, and you're thinking, okay, this is what I want to do over the next five years. What was one of the first things you thought of when you're like, okay, we got to try and do X? Oh, I'm racking your brain. You really are. You know, when I took over, I was pretty young. I think I was 29. It was the youngest general manager in the industry at that time. I started, when I came back kind of that 80-81 time frame and became full-time, I became the facilities manager. So I started out kind of looking after, like after, you know, kind of got a promotion to that and looking after bookings, rentals, making sure things were set upright properly and flowed properly. And then I kind of moved into the GM's position.

And I think the biggest thing that we were wanting to do is increase our event activity and increase our facilities. So we just kept working negotiating with the governments and, you know, with Dick's help still at the time, we added on the Saskatchewan building. We added on the other larger facilities, which gave us the opportunities to do way more things. We made the improvements to the racetrack back in 84. So we decided that we would pursue and go after the CPCA final. finals. And that was one of the bigger, some newer, bigger events that we did back in those days to, which made a big difference. And it's now 25, 26 years that we've been running that

event. You remember the day you went and pitched the CPCA? Hey, listen, we got a spot for you. Yeah, absolutely. It was the Northern Chuck Wagon Association back in those days. Yeah. So we sat down, negotiated a contract, a deal. Tom Hullstad, Larry Kirby, myself, and we put her together. And it was an amazing, it's been an amazing event I ever since. It's just growing bigger every year. How sad is it then right now on your last year in the helm? What's going on and there's no events going on? Well, there's two ways to look at that.

It's devastating to one degree. I'm not able to provide some good help and assistance to the crew to help them through the fair, get them through the fair on their own, get them through the chuck wagons on their own, all of our fun summer events and activities. but because it's a little slower, it gives us time to properly process property train, make some changes to how we need to, to continue to stay viable.

So it's kind of a bittersweet. You know, I'd love to be there pushing that last fare out, pushing that last chuck wagons out. But now I can help support the crew and the team, management team is saying, look, here's what you guys can maybe do to move forward and make some changes that meets the new standards that are being portrayed to us in today's new world. So it heartbreaking, but gratifying. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you can't win for losing some days, but then, then the next day

you think, well, this is great because now we can talk this through better. Because when we get rolling, and you put 900 of event days on through. a year, it's just a revolving door and you quickly move and move and move and move and by the time the events on, we are actually moving to the next three events that are after it to make sure that things are going well. Explain this to me. You say 900 event days. Yep.

So every time there's a single event, you call that an event day? Right. So. That means that roughly you have three events going. on every single day of the year. Yes, potentially. We have 13 rentable rooms plus the horse rings and the racetrack and the grounds. So at any point in back, we used to be 11, 1,200 event days until we hit the downturn in 13. So we were running hard seven days a week. Do you even stop to like, do you ever stop moving? For a very short period of time, you know, because you got to keep thinking

and moving ahead, right? And that's what I say. We have an amazing crew right now that have been through a good portion of some of that. So it's a huge learning curve for everybody. Did you ever have a point in time where you just locked yourself in a room for a little bit and just said, I got to turn the lights off, recal myself, and go, okay, and then step back into the tornado? Never to that strong of a degree. There's times where you've got to step back and think, oh, slower down a little bit, we got to get this working a little more effectively at times. Yeah, it's a challenge. It's never easy. That's impressive, though. But it's fun. You can't, this industry gets in your blood and it is exhilarating. It's one of the few that if you

have a dream to make an event and you have a dream to build something, you really can do it. there's not many ways and work jobs are out there that give you that freedom so if you want to build a trade show and you have the right contacts the right push the right pro set

you can do it well the thing with 39 years is you could start at small as like a little seedling and just slowly watch it blossom into something that now you know you actually have control over

because you've dealt with it for the five years prior. But to anyone on the outside looking in, you're going, how the heck are you handling that? There's things you're going everywhere. There is. And when you grow and build with it, right? Like I started back when we didn't have nearly as many facilities.

We had probably a third of what we do today. And you slowly build and process and organize and plan, it's easier, right? If you were to walk in and say, walk in and say, okay, tomorrow you're going to plan 1,100 events. And you think, no, I'm not. Pretty hard to do. But when you build and grow with it, it's a lot simpler and a lot easier.

So that's why it's so crucial to have the department. The team I've got now with the, under Janelle's new leadership, will be huge and be great, and it'll continue to just prosper. because a lot of these guys are a little bit more used to these multitasking and multi, all the different things we do. Well, I will say this. I've been to many event there, and they're always excellent. They're not subpar.

They're excellent. Well, we take pride in that, and we want people's experience to be positive. Now, we don't win all the time. You know, there's times that things don't always work 100%. Weather's a huge factor. There's other issues that are sometimes beyond control. Yeah, I kind of watch it fairly close. I find it watch it very, very close, actually.

Have you learned anything? Can you tell the weather by what they're saying? Sometimes. Sometimes it's your best guess, and sometimes you make the right one, and sometimes you make the wrong one. You know, I watch the weather diligently, especially through our big major outdoor events. Because it's, the patterns have changed pretty significantly.

over the last few years, as we all know. And it's all cycles in my mind. And these cycles have swung back to what used to be like when I was a kid, where you get a lot more thunderstorms. You get a lot more rains and quite a bit more snow at times. And if you're prepared and looking ahead, you can kind of follow the patterns that they show you the radars. And you can kind of see and think, you know,

well, we better be watching closer and slower up. to make some changes, make people make sure that they're safe because that's very crucial, especially in these outdoor activities and events. So I watch them close. What's one of the events that you like hang your hat on? Like, geez, I was really proud of that.

I know you mentioned the fair several times. I know that in reading about the fair, it sounds like it's been in Lloyd since 1904 in some shape or form. Yep. So right there, that's what, 116 years? Yep. Of an event, which anyone who's put on any type event,

just one single event, to run it for 10 years of an accomplishment, 116, holy dinah. Yeah. There's, oh God, there's so many. Like the chuck wagons, we used to do chuck wagon races for years and years, right? But we developed the CPCA finals, and I was instrumental with that. We ran an elk sale for half a dozen years. That was an amazing event,

and we kind of developed that through community benefit and community support. 4H Expo, that's gone for 40, 50 years. There's just, there's so many, the Lloyd Bullsale. We celebrated 100 years last year. 100 years. 100 years of the Pride of the Prairies, Lloyd Mr. Bullsale. stockade roundup that's over 40 years there's our rare and exotic sales there's just that's impressive

isn't it is we've ran some very long-term events and activities showcase that's another long-term aggravisions cattle and corral those like it's it's it's we've it's the length and longevity of a lot of these events that have actually helped keep us our association recognized throughout most of Canada, the strength that we provide to the industries. It's gratifying. Let's talk about the fair for two minutes. You talk about dealing with multiple people, talent, entertainers, etc. When you look back on it, you know, there's multiple different parts to the fair,

let alone just the rides. Absolutely. What are some of the things that people, don't understand or maybe get overlooked when it comes to the fair or is it all get overlooked no I don't think it gets overlooked I think people don't really understand the the fact is it's a it's a very expensive event for us to put on when we start bringing the entertainers in like we're spending a couple couple of two hundred two hundred fifty thousand dollars in an entertainment alone

to really to just provide the the base that we have it today You know, the yard thrill show acts, the concerts, the monster truck show, the bull riding, it's fairly large cost-wise to put on. Like the kids' entertainment, the dining room lounge entertainment, it's a very high dollar event to put in. And we rely on the weather to be good. We rely on people's satisfaction. We're a nonprofit organization that's here,

and the money and revenue we generate from these events helps keep us afloat to do all kinds of events and activities. Fair is one huge one, but it's an amazing event. It's an amazing event. It's four days. There's probably close to 80, 90 different events within the four days of fare, between the livestock, between all the entertainment for the adults, the kids, the Midway, the crafts, the arts, the trade shows,

the ag education area with Country Lane, the two food services areas that we have of our own, plus all the other food booths have come in, 32 rides on the Midway. It's just, it's a big moving target. And everything has to be planned, structured. We don't have many times where things don't go off perfectly or near to perfect because it's all the planning we do. And you look back at it. What was a home run you hit and you didn't realize it was coming?

You just like, holy, well, that worked. There's been a few, mostly on the entertainment side. Cardi Ray Jepson is one. I don't know. She was... Absolutely. Cardi Ray, the day after we signed her for... Very little money.

Beaver, Justin Bieber signed her. And she just went through roof. We had probably 4,000 or 5,000 people who watched Cardi Ray that day. And she sang for 40 minutes and everybody thought it was great. Earl was another one. Our local guy, Earl.

Earl brought tons of people. We had Uncle Cracker one year. He was driving through. He was fantastic. That was an amazing entertainer and an amazing person. Like just salt of the earth. Like, just a super nice guy.

And when he was coming through, I didn't even know who Uncle Cracker was at the time. You know, because I mostly do country music. And I thought, man, who's this guy? So I checked him out. And it was great. He just needed somewhere to go. What do you mean? He was just on his way through.

He just stopped him at the curb and said, hey, well, though. You got Uncle Cracker, fella. Can we get you in? Well, I got a call from an agent friend of mine. He said, you know, I got a band you might be interested. in. I said, Uncle Cracker, make me an offer. I said, well, okay, I don't know who Uncle Cracker is, but so I made him an offer and checked it out. And then once it all came to pass, it worked out amazing. You know, so you learn all kinds of these tricks and these games, right, doing,

working with these bands and entertainers and Sam Roberts was another win. Oh, Sam Roberts is fantastic. You know, same kind of thing as we did. And it downpored that night. Yes, it did. It did. But We got him off, though. And he sang right through it. Loved it. That was what made part of the night was that. It was. Sam, like that was an amazing concert.

And it was the same thing with Sam. Like, we bought him and he went gold right after that. So, you know, you get some wisdom. You get some luck. It's not always good planning, right? You just sometimes you buy what you think and hope it works. And we've had some really good successes. You know, like the old classic rock trooper, April Wine, Nazareth.

You know, we've had some, Kim Mitchell, like we've had some great talent on it through the whole fair. It's an amazing event and it just, it brings people together. It's the most, the biggest family, fun, great food event activity that there is. You know, that's a few of the things that I will miss, like the Chuck Wagon's the Fair. You know, because they're fun. There are a lot of work, but they're fun.

works great it's gratifying what kicks you when you're down is the weather you know we look and we've lost shows we've lost four days of the fair we only run four days with rain there's been a few years like that it went but it hurts but you know you you look you don't take those and just crawl away and go away and forget doing it you think all right well we got next year we can make this happen again and we don't get rain every year year. So there's benefits and there's pluses and minuses. The fair, well, all the events you talk about, I, you know, home on boy grew up and, you know, going to the fair and running around there.

I can just, the sights, the sounds, the smells. Oh, absolutely. Right. And the shows, all the side shows. The most memorable one I have with the fair is, is we brought a show up from the States and it was the Swamp Master. It was the Gator Show. The Gator Show. The Gator Show. You know. And the guy was, he was a young guy

and he didn't really know the rules and the plan. And the whole thing, he was a day late because he couldn't get across the border and he gets up and unfortunately one of his alligators passed away. And it was just one disaster after other for the poor. guy. And that year got so cold and it snowed outside Lloyd. And we had to take the gaiters

back to the hotel and put them in a hot bathtub to otherwise they were going to hibernation. It was, you know, just all kinds of crazy. He didn't know what he was going to do. And you know what, but two days later it got warmer and it worked out pretty good. So, you know, there's all kinds of bizarre, bizarre stories and history of things you can, you can. can totally think of. That's a pretty good story. Yeah, it is. When you look back at all the events, you must have a few more like that where just the

strangest things happen that you could not have predicted. Oh, yeah, trying to get back to that memory bank and think that through. There's quite a few, but I've just, at the moment, it's hard to remember all of them, eh? Did you have, you finish an event, everybody's gone home, it's quiet, you got you and, you whether it's team members or family or whatever. Did you guys have a ritual at the end of a good event? Listen, we're going to sit down and have a cup of whatever or a cigar or anything like that.

Was there a ritual at the end of it? Fair, yes. We would always get together, all the bunch of the directors who were there. And after the fireworks was over, because that was our biggest, best hurrah, was when the fire, relaxed shot's gone, and we get the people safely off the grounds. We'd sit down in one of the rooms and have a few beer and some ribs and chicken wings and just have a relaxing fun time.

That's something we've always looked forward to. I think you need to do that. Oh, you have to. I don't put on too many events. I can't sit here and talk about 900 days, but I put on a few. You've got to enjoy it. it while it's on, but you've got to kind of celebrate it when it's done and you've done it successfully. Absolutely. If you don't do those things, it's, you don't get the full experience

of the whole events because you can sit down and laugh and chuckle about what worked and you can or you can say you can cry over what didn't work. So it's always good to look at the good and the bad and laugh about them because if you don't laugh in life and you don't have those abilities to do that, it makes it pretty hard. So that's always been a key thing and family and just keep it light, keep it good. There's times to be strong and firm and tough, but man, you still have to look at the good things that happen at every event because there's always laws. We're going to get back to family in a second. I got that term written down here, as I've heard many a time when I read your articles, when I hear people talk about you. But before we hop to that

subject. I think to, you know, you talk about at the end of Colonial days to have a little meeting and celebrate it, I also think that's the best time when good ideas happen because it's so fresh in your memory of what worked really well, we got to do that again. Yeah. And what, you know what, you know what we cannot do that next year. Yeah. It's always good to do those post-mortems. And and yes, you got to look at the positive things. You got, you know, we always have to be a little careful getting too deep into it in that same night but boy I tell you it sure helps to kind of congratulate the stuff that worked and and that's what what needs to happen more often it's it's that's how you learn that's how you win and that's how you make improvements and and celebrate it

you know when people put in a lot of effort said I just saying we'll see you next year to sit around and spend a little bit of time celebrate it talk about it enjoy it The staff and there are many volunteers, like we start about seven in the morning, and we wrap up between, anywhere between one and two in the morning. So it's, and it's a week long of that. It's, I don't know how they do it in Calgary and Evan, and maybe they don't have the same process that we do, but man, it's a, it's long days, fun days, gratifying days, and it's, it needs to be celebrated.

Are you a coffee drinker? Absolutely. Are you a Red Bull drinker? No, just coffee. Just coffee. Just coffee. Absolutely. Put it to the vein.

Absolutely. I've heard this family thing that you treated the association like family or the group like family, something along that lines. Absolutely. That comes right from our grassroots. This was built by families, getting together and starting to come to show their goods, to have fun, do their cooking. They're showing their cattle. It was all family. It's the family experiences that have built this industry,

have built our association. So, and that has to continue, that experience needs to continue. Like, we'll, the staff, we encourage their families to become a volunteer and be part of the association, be part of the shows and be part of the events. If the families feel good about being part of it,

then so do our volunteers. so do everybody. It's the strongest component of who we really are as an association. We do call ourselves one big family, and we are. And that comes back from the history of the grassroots association that we are, because it takes families to make this work. If we don't have that buy-in, then we don't keep people for long. grew up there. My, they shared, my family shared me with this association. Hard on

them at times, yes, with the time and effort we put in, but thankful that we did that. I'm thankful that I had their support and I'm thankful for the opportunities that they were able to be part of. And that's the one thing a lot of our directors will say, well our kids, they've grew up here. This is, we've got, we've got people. Directors been on 15, 20, 35, 40 years. You don't do that without family support. And that's where the huge benefit comes in. Yeah, I actually just finished. I was saying to you earlier, I believe, that interviewed Gene Princepe.

And I was saying to him, like, I've always wondered how a reporter, like, who travels that much, what their family thinks about, right? Because he's got kids and a wife. And he said, basically what you just said, you've got to have buy-in from your family. because if your home life ain't good, chances are you're not going to be very productive on the other side of it. No, but if they aren't supportive and willing to work with you and make it and understand that the time that you've committed to this lifestyle, and it isn't easy on them. It's not simple and it does cause its strife's difficulties, but if you can involve them and they feel part of it,

that's where it's a huge benefit. And my wife, she was part of the association back years ago too because her mom and dad, her dad, Dennis, was on the board and her mom was one of our presidents, and Dennis was a president. So it was kind of, it was the understanding of being part of this association was already built into their family as well. So it made that part a little easier, but it's hard on the kids because, you know,

I was at work a lot and it's, it always, you miss some things and you don't try it to miss too many, but man, it's hard to not miss things when you work as much as we do and as much the community development that we've done. How many hours a week you work? Right now? No, right now only 40. In the busy time. In the busy time.

Oh, yeah, I don't even know if I want to think that through. I would say anywhere from 60 to 80 easy a week if not higher during the fair I'd get home for maybe

20 hours so yeah it's a big investment for time you know what's interesting to me most people are looking to do the complete opposite

and what I mean by that is they're looking for a job that'll pay them millions of dollars let's go extreme millions of dollars much money as you come on.

They only want to work 20 hours. They only want to work three days a week, whatever it is. And what you just talked about is the complete opposite. Is you're working every day of the week, being home very little, and yet it is just as satisfying as anything you've ever known, thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn't do it any differently. No, I wouldn't actually. Yeah.

It's like, this gets into your blood. This, and I'm serious. like it really does. Like, because you see the benefits you provide, you see the gratifications from the people when they say, that's a great event.

We had a great goal. You know, and there's the negatives, too. Like, you don't, not everything works 100%. And you take the negative comments and you say, well, okay, let's make this better so that we don't get those. And I think we've done a great job with some of those.

But you take, it's like I say, it gets in your blood, and honestly, it's addicting. Because the amount of fun you can have and the amount of great people you meet, and you've got to be a people person in this industry. If you don't like people and you don't like crowds and you don't like, it'd be very hard to manage. But if you like people, because that's what it's about, is people.

Families, people, communities, benefits. It's huge. Over your time, Mr. Weaver was asking me to ask you this question. How much do you think in total infrastructure have you helped develop for the Lloyd area? Is there a total that comes to mind or is there? Like for these on our grounds? Yeah. Oh, I'm racking his brain.

I know you are. I would say half of the facility. like the what was there back when Dick when Dick was kind of Dick and I kind of worked heavily together on getting Saskatchewan building and that in place the race track yeah the Alberta building I'd say half or better 30 40,000 square feet of the facility 50,000 square feet I should say with the new expansion on the front and the meeting rooms and the renovations and yeah it's large yeah it's large How about, I'm not saying that every time you lock down a guest or a show or a big deal or whatever it is that happens. But in doing this show, when I locked down a couple different guests and I've locked down my 100th guest, who's going to be on in July, I pulled over on the side of the road, gave a boat six-pist pubs, probably ran in a circle because I was super pumped. in your time, was there ever a moment where you're like just locked up whoever or whatever and you had one of those moments or you were just cool as a cucumber?

So excited, things went so good and everything's on target and everything's planned. Just about every bet. Seriously, because if they work great and everybody's, we get, it's successful and money's not always a success, right? It's the facilitation, the orchestration, the logistics, all of those things that go together to make an event successful. It's not always money. It's success of how we've benefited somebody, we've benefited the industries, we've benefited, that's my fist pump all the time, and when it works, that's the adrenaline. And when you meet people from around the world, that's the adrenaline. And that's a lot, almost every event we do for me.

When it works, it's great. What's the downer? It's always killed me. It's the bad weather. I was told that you had tons of ideas. You're an idea guy. You never had an idea that you thought, geez, that's what I'd like to do. That's what we're going to try and do. And then when it came to fruition, or you started down that path, you didn't go, this is, now we're doing something. Now we're cooking with fire. We're cooking with gasoline. Again, it kind of goes back to the majority of the events because that's what we do.

That's, you know, the elk sale was a big one. The fair, the chuckwax. It kind of goes back to all the events and activities we do. It's hard to really pinpoint anyone because it's really, it's been the big whole picture is what has always been my excitement and my dream. And making all those events come together and work hard, the logistics, the planning. That's the exciting, gratifying part.

Was there ever an event that you wanted to do then that you never got to do? Well, there's one. It's a wine and beer and food festival. That is one event that we are still kind of working towards putting together in cooperation, work with the city. that is one I'd love to get done but I'm not sure I'm going to quite get her done in three weeks to a month social distancing and all

yeah with the COVID that is one event I'd love to do I'd like to bring in a huge bigger concert the biggest one we brought in was Bob Dylan so far I'd love to bring somebody in larger than that if you could have you got all the power in the world

within reason I guess but who would you like to get it who is a guy that you reached out to, then saw the number and went, oh, yeah, we can't afford that. Most of them. There's, yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to think now. Blake Shelton would be good. Like, there's so many out there that we'd love to bring some more.

Did you ever approach Blake Shelton? No. Oh, Garth Brooks, man, that'd be all right. Yeah, absolutely. What was the highest number you heard? And you went, like, oh, man, who paid? that? Yeah, there's

a, oh, Garth, he was just about two million at the time when I priced him out. Two million? Yeah. Oh, no, these things are. How many tickets would you have to sell in order to make that happen? Did you go through the math and the logistics? Like, if we put

them in the middle of the thing and put stands in a little hair, and everyone went, we'd have to do it on, you'd have to do it on the outside grandstand. None of our buildings are large enough to managers show that size. Can you imagine if you'd gotten Gareth Brooks coming along? That would be awesome.

It would be great. I'd love to, but yeah, it's challenging. There's so many great talents and so many great entertainers out there. It's so much you can do, but it takes lots of people to pay for it. Yeah, if you got Gareth Brooks, you'd have people coming from western, well, BC to Ontario would drive to see that. Oh, totally. Totally.

he'd probably make a whole tour of it he'd probably hit every soon as as calgary and emminton heard he's coming a little old lawyer yeah that would be it would be great yeah no we've done a lot of shows there lots of work lots of good people uh you know it always gets brought up or i shouldn't say always but i always sometimes hear that uh grandstands need to be replaced do you think do you does that need to happen uh it's it's it's it's the grandstand's okay we're it is it be nice to have a roofed grandstand. So like we used to have back, back in the many, many years ago before 79, that was a roofed grandstand. It would be very beneficial and helpful.

The grandstand itself, it's good shape. It's okay. It needs to be, it'd be nice to be upgraded and updated. Why, why back then didn't you put a roof on it then? Simply budget. Just budget. Simply budget. Absolutely. You know, we put up the new 3,000 seat grandstand and there was just just not enough money to put a roof on at the time. And that's, it's an expensive venture. I don't doubt that. Yeah. So that, you know, one of our plans is,

and in the long term plan for what we do is, is to replace it with a roof grass stand. So we can convince the government to give us some, some money here to next, well, we got an expert salesman sitting there. For weeks, we'd be okay. You know people every, every which way of this country. I'm sure you can make that happen.

Well, we keep talking. She's pretty tight out there right now. So, yeah, we keep talking about a lot. You never know. You just never know anymore. Who is maybe not the worst to deal with, but who is one of the people who came through and you're just like, man, that was difficult.

Maybe difficult is the right word for talent. The worst was April Wine. Really? Yeah. Why so? How so? Just very challenging, demanding, not necessarily. And it wasn't really the band.

It was the manager, the tour manager of the day. We didn't necessarily get along great once he got on site because his demands were outrageous. What were some of his demands? He needed a Marshall 2 head amp and we had a Marshall 3 head amp. the one guy would have had to use a reverse pedal to make it work, and he would not accept that. He wasn't going to go on the stage, wouldn't let the band's on the stage until we fixed it. So we might have had a few words, and we got things resolved. We actually had to send a guy to Edmonton to go get the right app for him, and just, you know, just didn't like the food.

It was just the tour managers can be the most challenging of the acts, but April Wine's tour manager It was probably the worst experience that I've ever had. And I've never forgot that. In your position was, were you just there to solve problems? That just sounds like a silly problem to have to solve. And you just want to shake your head like, really? And yet, you send a guy to Amiton, gets fixed, on they go. They sing, everybody enjoys it.

Nobody's none the wiser except for six people. Absolutely. And you carry on with them. exactly right. You deal with things, you make it happen, and you've got to stay calm and collective with it because you can't lose your mind over everything and all the little things. You just figure out a way to make it work and make it happen. It makes the day more enjoyable. You know, although you get frustrated and you get, you know, you might have pulled your hair out. But, you know, in the end, if no one else sees the issue or no one else knows there's an issue,

there's really no issue. It's always a good thing. thing to follow. Nobody sees what's wrong and it facilitates and feels good and looks good and works good and you're the only one that knows or your team maybe the only ones that know. That's what matters. As long as our customers don't realize that something's not right. Yeah, you're the duck on the pond. Absolutely. The feet are just absolutely going, but everything on the top is calm and cool. Yeah, absolutely. There's the odd day you get the white caps on the water that wash the duck to shore. but on the average, that's exactly right. And you have to plan and work that way.

And in my world, I've always said, you've got to have a plan B in your mind. If you go, if you got planning on the table, you better have a plan B brewing in your back of your mind because that's the simplest way to solve a problem is when you have a backup. What was your favorite store or person to call or something along that lines

that plan B always involved. Man, if this happens, I guess we're just going to run to Walmart to grab whatever. Or we're going to stop by Johnny's. He's got 12 different extension cords and shovel and whatever else. You know, I want to say probably the liquor store, she can go get that bottle of whiskey to solve most of the problems with. You know, it's your, in most cases, it's ducting. deep and haywire. So you go to a hardware store to get what you need to kind of solve most of your

problems. Right green. Yeah, absolutely. She don't find your hands, but she should at least find you handy. Absolutely. Duck deep and haywire. Oh, God, that's good. Yeah. You did bull sales, you were mentioning it's been 100 years. Yep. I got to think that many bulls going through the place. There's got to be the odd time a bowl gets on the loose. Well, there's been more than the odd time. More than the odd time. It was, every year with our stocks,

we either fall shore or bullseil, we'd have a bull run down Main Street. You had a bull run down Main Street? Oh, absolutely. More than one occasion over the years. Or they get loose and one goes across the golf course, you know, and generally there's nobody out there golfing.

But because it's either spring or fall when the guys are off the course. For holy moly. what is that? Watch out for that bull. We had one bull kind of, I remember getting away and ended up in a in a lady's backyard and kind of didn't appreciate the swing set that was in the backyard. So I think we had to replace a swing set on that deal. But the bull got in there and got tangled up and took off with a swing set. So there's all kinds of little stories. You know, you can always reminisce about. We had a 4-H steer one year to get loose in the buildings.

And all of a sudden, that's back when we had our kitchen in a stockade, and we called the R.J. Nelson Room now, which was the old boardroom, and we turned it into a kitchen for the stockade when we were doing lots of banquets and stuff, and we just waxed the floor. And the wash rack was at the north end of the Alberta building where the new washrooms are now that we call it. He gets into there and he busts through and gets into the stockade, freshly waxed floor, and he's slipping and slide and destroyed the floor, ran into the kitchen, got into

the corner of there, and we got him chased out of the old kitchen. Didn't do it. It's a lick of damage in there. Just kept going around the table out the front door and stood over by the teepee and started eating grass. And the kid walked up, grabbed the halter and let him back into the market. It was priceless. hit the crash bars on the door perfectly, just bang out the doors.

Three sets of doors out. Didn't break any glass, just scratched up the floor. All kinds of... What happened on the weekend? Oh, you know, just a steer gut leaves. No big deal. Just a standard Saturday here. Go ahead into the...

Into the car, into the stockade. Yep. We had a private bull sale one year in the Alberta building. And back in the day, we had car sale in the stockade before we turn it into a banquet hall. Well, get there in the morning and come through the stockade, and it was full of cars. I believe there are Chevroletes at the time.

Who might have been, and there's 10 bowls inside the building, and they broke through the same door, the 4-H steer did, got into the cars. Thank God Lord, nothing was fighting. Otherwise there'd be nothing left. They just walked around, never even touched a car. Never did nothing. We'd manage to somehow get them hazed out of the room

into, back into the same way they came without a lick of damage. Like, you know, there's things that, and most of the time, somebody's having fun with you upstairs. Absolutely, go in, and the place would be destroyed, you know? The old boys would be telling, I remember back an old 89, when the bulls got loose with the Chevroes in the vehicles. Oh, yeah. There's lots of those interesting types of stories.

We had Buffalo in the old wash rack. We had a first Buffalo encounter we ever had was at our rare and exotic sale. It was back in the 80s. Guy comes in with 11 Buffalo. And these aren't, they weren't little. They weren't calves. They were big. We put them in the old.

old wash rack. You never in 4-H? Funny story. I was never in 4-H. No. No. All my siblings were. Yeah, and your dad was a leader. And yet, in the old wash rack in the Alberta building at the south end, it was a cinder block room. We put a couple big heavy panels across, housed them right inside the wash rack, back the truck into the stockade, put the load jude up to the door, and unloaded them into there. And we never moved him out of there. We sold them, right in the ring while they started fighting.

Two Buffalo started fighting. 11 Buffalo. 11 Buffalo started fighting. Started fighting in that room, in a cinder block wall. And you could see the wall moving. And there were still permanent cracks in that wall until we replaced it all one year. But the wall was moving. And it was quite, you know, and we're all thinking, oh, this building's full of people.

so we have to and we finally got them calm down how did you calm down and live in buffalo lost you to the bail a hay made a difference of the world because they got busy eating and they were fine but and then we quickly loaded them into the truck and got them out of there get them to heck out of here don't show the building inspector that one oh but yeah yeah there's lots of good memories lots of good memories what's one of the biggest changes then you've seen over your 39 years, whether it's with Lloyd, whether it's with the egg and exhibition, like, what is one of the big changes you noticed? You know, we started, when I first started there, it's mostly with the association, right? It's, you know, we were running a handful of days a year. Everybody

thought the only thing we ever did was either the bullseller affair, right? Even now, most people think, well, I don't think we do is fair. Some days now don't even know we do a fair. So, but it's adding all the events and activities and the growth that we've seen with that association. You go from running 100 event days a year to our strongest of 11 to 1,200 event days a year and actually facilitating and making that all work is probably the biggest growth. The increased in the grounds and increased in our facilities that we do and the amount of events and activities that we run. That's what I see is the biggest economy has been in growth that this association has done. When you start bringing 2 and 300,000 people through the grounds,

our economic impact to Lloydminster has been in the last few years, well over $47 million a year. $47 million per year? Yes, for economic impact to this community. It's huge. And like most people don't realize we are our nonprofit charitable organizations. We are not, we are, we're not there to make, to make money. The events and activities that we operate and run help, help manage, help manage the,

the cost it does to operate the facilities, put on the events and activities, make the improvements that are needed. We get some government granting about six or seven percent of our total worth for the year is grants, but the rest of it is self-generated. and we are a non-profit organization that is here for the benefits of this whole community. A lot of think we're out to make money and we're for profit business, but we are not. And we're not a city facility. We are independent.

We work very well with our city of Lloydminster, but we are our own independent organization. And most people don't even understand that. Somebody's, I don't even understand that, but it's, you know, but it's true. And because they think that we are, we are city facility and why, why are we doing things the way that we do? We are not. We're our own independent organization. What's some of the things then you've given back to in the city? Oh, as in, what do you, what are you thinking there?

Well, I guess, I think our lives is what we've given back to this city. Well, that's fair. In all fairness, right? You know, we start bringing in the events and activities, the benefits that we provide to the food industry, to the hotels, the gas stations, to the retail, and the experiences that our community have at the grounds. I have more people come up to me and say,

hey, you have helped us, and we've been to your fair for the last 50 years. Yeah. We haven't missed one. We look forward to it. We hope to be part of it. You know, those are gratifying experiences, and that's what we've given back to this community, is to this city is our lifeblood in supporting the region.

While you're an attraction. We are. We're a big part of this community, and we are proud of it. Well, you think you go to, let's throw it, we'll stick with hockey. You're making fun of me at the start with all the hockey in here. You go to an oiler game. You just don't go to an oiler game. No, you don't.

You go to an oiler game plus supper, maybe you spend a night in a hotel, etc. Absolutely. So what you're talking about is when you come to Lloyd to go to Agrovision's or the Lloyd Fair. Or the bullsale. Or the bullsale. Or the chuck wagon races or one of the other thousand events that we do. Chances are you going to stop and you're going to pick some. something up at different store, you know, I, heck, I remember living on the farm and coming in,

and pretty soon you've stopped at three different places, not that Hillmont is that far out of town, but... No, but that's true. You come into town, you're going to do a couple things. Yep. And by having that here, it's become a hallmark of the city of Lloyd to have sitting in here that people travel to, they come to the different things. You bring, well, I mean, 200,000 people, 300,000 people coming through, whether there are a bunch of those are Lloyd or not, obviously a lot of them are, but, I mean,

and the area, bringing those here instead of elsewhere. Yep. There's a lot of people's money being spent in the town. It is. It's huge. And businesses, we support a huge amount of business in life. So it's a great, it's just a great feeling when we see those things and how people do appreciate it.

We have lots of great partners in this community. Yeah, that's good. I guess I didn't really think about it that much, and now you've brought up that you're not owned by Lloyd. That's an interesting relationship. It is. We are owned by our members, and our members are made up from our region

to be a member of the association. That's who elects the board, and that's who manages, and the manager then works for the board and facilitates the needs of the organization. to the benefit of the industry. So you must have been doing something right. Well, there's days you think so.

Then, you know, you've got to wonder some days. Not everything I say. Not everything you do is always right. But, you know, it's, it is a huge, and that's what I'm saying, it's a huge big family, and it goes right back to the membership. And that's why Lloyd Exhibition

is a huge part of this community. Yes, agriculture is our main drive and our main grassroots, but the whole community is where our energy comes from. You know, that's where a showcase was bored, because it's a trade show for a lifestyle leisure show. Chuck Wagon, entertainment, fair, fair is huge. All the ag programming we do and all the other rentals we have. It's a great spot where people can come and rent facilities to put on their dream event or their dream activity. their wedding, their trade show, their safety meeting, their business meeting,

their, in the end, funerals as well. We do support, we have a lot of funerals where we support the families and their in their needs for that. It's, we will work with you to do whatever is needed to make your event and your activity a better as good experience as we can. You know, you just rattled off all the events and I was thinking, I started thinking, I'm like, oh, yeah, and there's that, and then you start mentioning them. How fast can you take down and put up an event? Overnight.

Have you ever had to work overnight? Oh, yes. Yeah. We, the closest one, and I believe it was the, we had a cattle sale. I think on a Tuesday and by Friday we had the, we had the, Saskatchewing, Tore out, reset,

reclaimed. I wouldn't say the order was gone 100% for the Tanya Tucker concert, you know, so,

oh yeah, we do very tight turn rounds. That had to have been stressful. A little bit. Oh, yeah, at times it is.

Did you ever, people, you're never going to pull this off? There was a couple of days a couple of times I thought myself we weren't going to

pull some of these tight turns off, but we've always managed to. We've never an event we've never been late. So in all these years. So no it's absolutely it's it's it's all planning in logistics and communication right and you got your little you have to have your checklist to make sure you got your plans all in place and all the structure done and it flowing nicely. We we do some very very tight turns. What's one of the

biggest lessons you've learned then over your career? always have a plan B. Always have a plan B. So when you're planning something out, you're just like already thinking, listen, if this goes wrong, this is what we're going to try. Absolutely. You have to do that because you always,

it gives you that opportunity to really have a, because again, when you plan something, not everything always works 100%. So you've got to kind of think, well, if this goes wrong, here, we can do this to solve that or vice versa or, you know, who do we call to back you up and who do you call for support? It's always good to have those plans. That's the biggest thing I've always learned. Communication, make sure your plan works, laid out and facilitated. Did you ever have

a one-hit wonder? And what I mean by a one-hit wonder is, did you ever just do an event once? It was really good, but for whatever reason it was unique and maybe it was a traveling show or anything just coming through. It was super successful, but you're like, man, how would we ever recreate that? Oh, livestock. We partnered with the goat back years and years ago, Stu Dent, and we put on an event, and it honestly was great.

It had unfortunately weather kicked us, and we didn't generate a whole lot of revenue, but it was an amazing three-day outdoor festival for Classic Rock. and what was it called? Livestock. Oh, livestock. Do you remember that one? Yes, I do.

Sorry, I was thinking. It was a great event. And it was in all fairness. It didn't financially work, but it was successful in the logistics, the planning and all of that. It just, it was a tough year. And economy was not as good. And the weather kind of kicked us. And it was a tough goal.

But that would be one at a extent. experiences. What are you going to do now in retirement? Like, you know, you just basically said you gave your life to this thing. It's addicting as all hell. And now you just, done. And just like that, it's over. Are you going to still be involved in some capacity? I'll support them as long as they want and help them as long as they need and provide the guidance that if they wish. You know, what I've learned over the years, like I could be a general contractor, right? Because, you know, we built a lot of buildings together. I could help do a trade show. I could do a trade show. I could, you know, run a concert. The life skills that I've

learned there, it has many, many, many paths I could go down. And I think I'm going to take, you know, a few months just to kind of cool the jets a little, relax a bit, maybe get a little hunting in this fall, maybe, hopefully get a little hunting in this fall, because I always swore I'd take a whole November up and go hunt deer. And most I've ever got in is two weekends. So I'm looking to get that done. Go do some fishing, more fishing this summer, you know. So, you know, just kind of enjoy life for a bit.

Kind of see where the path takes me. I'm, you know, I'm not that old yet. I got a few good years left in me. But it was time to do, you know, get some new blood and new energy and new life cycle going with these. association so for the association so I think it's it gives me but I have many opportunities maybe I'll run my own shows rent the be a big renter for the facility you know you just there's so many paths I can go and so many so many

things to do and my my plan is stay in the community and and just continue being part as best I can speaking of new blood in the in association with the new GM, Janelle, and I torture her last name every time. How do I say? Sasku. Sasku. Yeah, Sasku. Sasku. Yep. I got it there. You bet. What advice would you give her? What advice would I give Janelle? Yeah. Be yourself, follow your instinct, communicate well, and continue to be a strong part of the community.

Success will come with you. That's good advice. Well, let's go into our final five. I know you've been on me, folks, he was on me when we first started about how long we're going to go and I need to get him home for his bedtime. Absolutely. This is a guy that worked through the night putting on events and now he's talking about bedtime. Well, since COVID, I've been able to slower back down and kind of get used to this. He used to never going to sleep till midnight.

Most days, I wouldn't get home from the office till 11. What are you doing in the COVID lockdown? Well, not a hell of a lot. I can say that. Reading books or watching a TV show or doing yard work that I've been done for five years and you know catching a couple more Zs and watching some more TV what do you've been watching on TV all my good shows like Game of Thrones are done and you know the Vikings it's over and trying to find something new and good to watch not trying to stay away from the news because that ain't

been real fun to watch lately so on the news has been kind of tough to watch it's been challenging Yeah, yeah. Well, I highly suggest the last dance of Michael Jordan documentary. That was fantastic, both the Bulls and the 90s. I've heard that. It's fantastic. I've got to maybe have to check that one out. Yeah, man.

Okay, well, let's do the Crude Master Final Five, and then I'll let you get home and back to your Zs and catch him back up on life. So the Crewed Master Final Five, just five quick questions, a shootout to Heath and Tracy McDonald, huge supporters of the podcast. Great people, great, great people. Absolutely. I'm going to get Heath on here. Are you?

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, right on. Well, I shouldn't have dropped that, but Heath, you're coming on and now it's official. So he was hesitant when I first suggested it to him. Was he? Yeah. Well, we've done a fair bit with Heath, and I've really appreciated his support for the community and his support to our association.

I've always respected that man. Yeah, he's fantastic. And I think a lot of people don't understand how much he does for the community behind the scenes. He does an awful lot. He certainly does. And most people do not understand that. Well, you'd mentioned now in retirement, maybe you'll run your own show and bring it back and rent the buildings. If you were to run your own show, what would you run? What would you want it to be? Pie in the sky.

Pie in the sky? Yeah. Bring Garth Brooks. You would want to, hey, Lloyd, I'm bringing Garth Brooks. This is what it's going to be. I wish I could. I'd love to do that big show like that. You know, one kind of dream thing is putting an outdoorsman hunt show, specific hunting show on. You know, that's another good dream I've worked on and tried to put together. So there's a few things out there. Well, I look forward to seeing what you bring.

Yeah. Well, you never know. I may just want to sit and actually enjoy and relax, do for a few years. What's one thing left on your bucket list? One thing left in my bucket list. That's a good question. enjoy well there's a you know guy you want to go in a good hunting trip I'd like to be over and go to an Africa tour do a that would be that's one of my bucket lists is to do that

go down to the Kentucky Derby see that that's another bucket list there's a few there is a few you know I've never in my life gone to the Calgary Stampede really no Calgary You can't. Calgary Stampede has been the same days as our fair for 39 years, at least, if not more. So, you know, there's quite a few things on the bucket list. And most of them are still event and entertainment related. What's the biggest event you've never attended then that you'd love to attend? You know, I think the Kentucky Derby would be it, because that is an amazing, an amazing, amazing event.

Mom and Dad just went to it a year or two ago now. Yep. They said it was unbelievable. Yes. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, that is one thing that we've talked about doing it. I think we'll make that happen. Coolest person you've ever met through the X?

There's a lot. It's hard to narrow it down. Sure. Meeting Stephen Harper was great. It was cool. I really enjoyed that. Just a salt-of-the-earth guy. I got to say, though, the coolest experience is my trip to China.

Most people who maybe don't remember, but City of Lord Mr. Twinned with a city in Inner Mongolia called Zeelandhot. And that's many, many years ago. Sid, I helped a good friend of mine, Sid Palmer, tour a couple of Chinese delegations around and supported that. he put together a twinning opportunity for the city of Lloyd to work with, and I traveled over to China with Glenn Buchanan and Ilston Plant, our mayor of the time. And I got to know the mayor of the city of Zeelandhot.

He declared me his brother that before we left, we had a great time, great relationship, and I got to say that's probably the coolest coolest I've had was spitting that two weeks in China learning their culture, being part of their culture, and experiencing their lifestyle. It was amazing and I would not give that up for the world. What years was that?

Do you remember how long ago it was? 23, 24 years ago. So late 90s? Yep, late 90s. Mid to late late late. Yeah, that was phenomenal. An experience of a lifetime. What did you, when you're over there for two weeks?

Yep. What sticks out? What was one of the things that was just like, man, this is unbelievable? The most thing sticks out in my mind is some people will think this is crazy, but we went to a shooting range with the general, the army, and casually shooting AK-47s on targets in the middle. middle of a, at the Chinese military gun range. That was an experience again. I'll never forget. Were you looking around going, you want me to do what now? Yeah, yeah, kind of a bucket list,

you know, out there shooting AK-47s in the middle of a, in a Chinese, with the Chinese general of the area. It was cool. It was very, very cool. And, you know, the friends that we met over there and experiences that we had, it was, it was great. If you could sit and have a coffee or a beverage of your choice with any person dead or alive, who would you want to sit and pick the brain of? An old buddy my name, Don Stewart, and actually the other one is Winne McLean. Two good friends who passed away in the last few years. We did a lot together to just talk about the old fun times and the memories

and the learning experiences that we've all been through, that is two things, two guys that I'd love to do that with. Your final one, and this one is, this is when I'm directly for me. You've been in this area a long time. You've served this area a long time. If there was another guy from this area or abroad that you think would be awesome to sit and hear some stories from

to come on this podcast, who would you think, man, you've got to get this guy? I got to think about that. one for a minute or two. So somebody that you would want to do an interview with on the podcast. That's correct. That you think, you know, this cattle guy, this agricultural farmer, this just Lloyd guy. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of them are gone. That's the unfortunate part, all the history. You know, one good fellow that can tell stories in all kinds of history, Terence Bexson.

I got Terrence on. Did you? Yeah. Absolutely. Terrence was fantastic. He was amazing. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I did.

Hey, at least I'm doing something right. You said one guy, I got him. And you did. Yeah. You did. No, that would be, yeah, that would have been, I missed that one. That was amazing. Terrence and I, we've done, he's a great friend.

And he's always got the history and the benefit of this association. always at the backer's mind. Well, you know, you asked when you first walked in the door, he said, what the heck do you want me on? And I look at it and I go, the reasons you're talking right now about who did you get on, a lot of them are gone. It's like, well, by no means are you in your 90s and anything like that.

I don't want to sound like that at all. But you're a guy who's experienced a lot. And I always think the older generation, older than me, those stories need to be. captured. And for Lloyd and area, there's so many of them that are just gone, but there's so many still left that are pure gold. And if a guy can stumble his way into a few more, it'll make for some entertaining radio. Oh, and knowledgeable too. Like, you know, there's lots to learn about our

community. Yeah, there's lots. I'll think of some other names. I'll get some other ones off. I appreciate that. Well, thank you very much for hop and on. I hope you've enjoyed it. It's certainly. It's been fabulous. I've certainly enjoyed sitting across me and hearing a little bit about what you've done and, you know, just some of the things that have come through Lloyd and, well, in 39 years. Absolutely. You know, it's just a lifetime of experiences that are so memorable. And I'm so happy.

I'm glad my family allowed me the time to spend doing this and supported me through all these years. my great wife Kelly and Tess Lee and Carter, the kids that's the support that they've given me and allowed me to do what I do. I can only thank them for allowing me to be giving as much of my time away from them for this associationist community. And they need to be, they are to be commended for giving me that ability and supporting me for all those years. Absolutely. One last story then. How did you meet your wife? I never ever talk about the significant other enough on this.

And I always get not criticized but harassed maybe a little bit about it. So how did you meet your wife? How did you woo her? How did you were at four in the morning while shoveling? A shoveling shit at the grounds there? That's right. Well, she was part of that back in those days. So it was okay.

Well, we went to school together. So we knew each other through actually from junior high on. We graduated the same year. We all, we went our separate ways for many years, and we reconnected in the early late 90s, and actually it was a bet. I said, you know, we bet on something at the ground. She was doing, taking pictures and doing interviews there when she was working for a magazine, and I said, well, it's going to, you know, we'll bet you a supper that this will happen.

Well, I think she maybe won the bet, and I had to take her for supper anyways, but, and it ended up. We just reconnected, and it was the story continued. Well, that's how we'll end it then, sir. Well, thank you. I appreciate you hopping on. This has been a lot of fun. My pleasure. Hey, folks.

Here's a little bonus coverage, and just a quick little story from an avid listener, Mike Applegate, wherever you're at today. This should put a smile on your face. It was right in the middle of a couple different things we were talking about. It got edited out, but I thought I'd stick it on the end for you. So thanks again for listening, guys. The question is, and if I said I have to phrase it this way, who was his favorite salesman from the Meridian printer, in quotes, the booster?

My favorite salesman from the booster? I guess so. Does that ring any bells? Oh, man, there's been a few. Ron Mulch, maybe. Is Mike Applegate asking the question? Oh, Mikey. Yeah, there's been many salesmen over the years.

Did Mike Applegate used to work for the booster? He did. He was our sales rep for the booster. Sold us ads for many, two, three years, at least maybe. It was quite a while, Mikey. I didn't talk to him for quite a while. I'd tell you what, that is something I didn't know about Mr. Applegate. Well, shout out to Mr. Applegate.

Absolutely. He was a great salesman. Really? Yeah. I had no clue. Who knew? Who knew Mike was a salesman? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Hey folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time. Still here, are you? Well, your hint this week is he's been to Lloyd before.

So stick that into everything else. He has been to Lloyd before. Whether that means he lived here, whether that means he just visited, whether that means, well, you do the math. He's been around Lloyd Minster before. Now, if you're new and you're going, what the heck is he talking about, I suggest maybe you go back a couple episodes, but essentially we're having a little bit fun with the 100th episode coming up. And for this little segment right here at the end of every episode leading up to the 100th, We're going to give away a golf package for four and two carts to Sandy Beach, a round of nine,

plus a $200 gift card to factory sports. How do you enter, you wonder? Head to social media. Tag the podcast, the hashtag Who's 100, W-H-O-S-100, with your guest for 100. Every episode you can add a new guess, I'll write them down. I'll release it closer to, and you'll all be entered into a draw, like I say, for a round of nine, four people, two carts, a $200 gift card to factory sports. Shout out to both of those organizations for helping out with this.

Look me up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, freaking shoot me an email, shawneumannpodcast.com. It don't matter. Sean Newman Podcast at gmail.com. You could get it right. The idea is, who's 100, and if you can figure that riddle out, maybe you'll win a little something, something. Okay, guys, I'll get off here and stop talking.

You all go have a great day.