Go big or go home.
That was the plan for this year’s Fall Fair, says James Mannion, who, along with the rest of the TR Days Society, has been working hard to plan this year’s Fall Fair. “The year had been panning out, we decided to put all our efforts into making the Fall Fair a longer event,” says Mannion. “We’re going till 11pm this time. Usually it stops around five.
“We’re trying to get as many vendors as we can possibly get. We’ve got a whole list of musicians coming out for full day of music. And we’re hoping uh get everybody in there to continue to support the TR Strong campaign that we started back in February with the hoodies and the t-shirts and all the money raised for the PAC [Parent Advisory Council].”
One of the big changes this year is there will be an entrance fee. “But 100 percent of the gate sales are going to be donated to the PAC, as well as the merch sales.”
Indeed, there will be some special items that will only be available this weekend, says Mannion. “It’s exclusives stuff that you can get there. The whole thing is about everyone coming out and having one last summer hurrah, while raising some funds and showing support for the community.”
Mannion says there will be a wide selection of vendors this year, even more than in the past. “We’ve had a lot of people reaching out to us, that want to come and bring stuff that people may not have seen there before. We’re going to have 50-50 draws, and that evening, we’ll be drawing for the WestJet raffle for a round trip to anywhere WestJet flies.
“The TRORA Show and Shine is also going to be an addition this year and anybody can register for that. You can find the info on their social media pages.
“We’ll have the dino park open for the kids. There’s a giant inflatable bounce house coming; it’s apparently the biggest they had. That’s going to be exciting, too.
Mannion says the last few weeks have been action packed in town; he’s hoping that people aren’t partied out and are ready to wrap up the summer with one last big celebration.
“The plan is to get everyone together for one big party to end of the summer!”
The forecast for the weekend is shifting; at the time of publication, it looks like it will be nice on Saturday, but it may rain heading into the weekend. “Rain doesn’t seem to put local people off,” he says. “I hope it doesn’t at any rate. But I encourage everyone to wrap up warm we’ll have fire pits for people to gather around to make sure that people can stick around as long as they can.”
While the event is still the Fall Fair, it is also a benefit concert for the PAC. “There was a benefit concert in Dawson Creek put on by the Kiwanis Performing Arts Centre with a lot of musicians, which was great. But most of the TR musicians at the time were unable to come out, because we were busy dealing with all the other things after the shooting.
“But this one we wanted to go all out and try and get the biggest and the best that we could. We emailed all of the agencies in Canada. We ended up reaching out to Kyle McKearny and his manager Jeff and the next morning I had a response of ‘100 percent we’re in!’ Kyle is originally from Fort St. John, and is a multi-award winning alt-country artist. Every year he seems to win more awards at the Canadian Country Music Awards and things like that. He’s a great artist.
“He told us ‘I’ll figure out how to get my full band there and we’ll make it so that you guys don’t have to pay a penny.’ That gave me a crazy amount of energy to reach out then to a lot of my Peace Region colleagues and musicians that I’ve worked with over the years.”
He says there were so many responses, he was worried that it would be a two day event, which was a little too much for this year’s Fall Fair.
But next year? Is this a back door way to get a music festival—maybe Grizfest, maybe a replacement—off the ground in Tumbler Ridge?
“Part of the intention with this and with the Conuma parties was to work with Sound in Town—who are the best production company in the north. We wanted to showcase what the fairgrounds and the stage could look like in a music festival situation. It seems to have been quite impressive for a lot of people.
“The intention is to start focusing on the music again and to put things in the works to showcase Tumbler Ridge to the Peace Region. I think it can all come together to create another great annual festival/ event.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
