The message was positive at Dauphin’s Countryfest Annual General Meeting (AGM) this past Thursday.
Despite the cancellation of the 2020 festival due to COVID, organizers are hopeful for the future.
Rob Waloschuk, the general manager of Canada’s longest-running country music festival, says it wasn’t a great year in light of the cancellation — but the AGM revealed it wasn’t as bad as they thought.
“We took advantage of a lot of government programs and things like that and did some cost-cutting. We were able to weather through 2020 and look forward to trying to host something going forward.”
One of the positives coming out of 2020 was the ticket holders who rolled over their tickets until the next festival.
“The support of our ticket holders and especially our Countryfest Members who have stuck with us through this has been phenomenal,” said Waloschuk, “we could not have done it without this support.”
The 2020 AGM also saw the addition of two new Directors to the Countryfest Board. Colette Hykawy and Ron Hedley will join volunteer Directors Carissa Caruk-Ganczar, Clayton Carefoot, Stephen Chychota, Ron Love, Chad McCrady, Duane McMaster, Lisa Saunders, Wayne Steiner, Jamie Van Beukenhout and Dean Yerama.
Looking Ahead To The Next Festival
The Dauphin’s Countryfest general manager confirms they’re planning to do something this year, but says it will take some time before organizers know what that would look like.
Waloschuk says he’s confident something will happen this summer.
“We’re still here, we’re still surviving, and we’re going to be presenting entertainment to people for years to come.”
