EDMONTON- The City of Camrose is gearing up to welcome tens of thousands of country music fans this weekend, for Big Valley Jamboree.
The four-day festival gets underway Thursday with a kick-off party headlined by Neal McCoy. And with other big country stars like Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan, Big & Rich and Terri Clark performing this weekend, organizers are looking forward to four days of great music.
“We’ve got a great lineup, the weather is looking like it’s going to be in our favour,” said Larry Werner, one of the festival’s producers. “So right now it’s feeling really good and the set up is going well.”
The entire weekend is sold out for the second consecutive year, with 25,000 people expected to take to the festival grounds each day.
“The majority of tickets… sold out end of January,” Werner explained.
With that many people visiting the small city southeast of Edmonton, economists estimate it will generate about $8 million. But that’s just the beginning of the economic benefit for Camrose.
“The nice thing about the $8 million is that money is recirculated,” explained Ray Telford, an economic development officer with the City of Camrose.
“Of course there’s money spent on building the Big Valley Jamboree, for sponsorships and things like that, but… there’s new staff that are around, they’ll use the money and they will spend the money again in Camrose and area.”
Telford expects the money circulated around the community will generate a total between $17 and $18 million for Camrose.
Besides the economic impact the festival has on the city, “it puts Camrose on the map,” Telford explained.
“It gives people a reason to come to Camrose and then when they’re in Camrose, they will come again.”
And come again they have. Now in its 21st year, organizers say Big Valley Jamboree continues to grow and credits the success of the festival to the community surrounding it.
“It’s the fans, it’s the sponsors, it’s the management team, it’s everybody that’s involved with the festival. They’re here to support it and see that it does as well as it possibly can and people are very dedicated to Big Valley Jamboree,” Werner said.
Big Valley Jamboree will wrap up Sunday night with a performance by country legend Tim McGraw.
With files from Shannon Greer, Global News.
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