PNE considers moving the Fair to July

Your annual trip to the Fair at the PNE might be taking place a little sooner in the next few years.

The event that has become a summer tradition for many people in B.C. is looking into changing dates for the annual fair.

The reason? Changing regional weather patterns.

The Pacific National Exhibition says weather conditions have dramatically affected the event in previous years, so the organizers will poll British Columbians on changing the historic end-of-summer dates to a mid-summer, July window.

The 17-day Fair normally ends on the Labour Day weekend in September.

The organizers say the decision is by no means final, and they are only exploring the possibility of changing the dates.

“This is some preliminary research on a concept that we as an organization have been considering for close to a decade,” spokesperson Laura Ballance said in a press release.

Ballance says over the past 25 years, late August has been consistently receiving more rain and experiencing cooler temperatures, so ending the fair on Labour Day may no longer make sense from a weather perspective.

Organizers say changing weather patters have resulted in an average of twice the amount of rainfall in the last two weeks of August compared to the last two weeks of July. They also say average daily temperature drops in late August.

Ballance says the 2015 Fair saw four strongest days in over a decade but poor weather conditions resulted in a 10 per cent drop in attendance by the end of Labour Day.

The PNE has hired Insights West to conduct the poll starting May 11. The organizers will also be conducting the poll on their website at PNE.ca and any member of the public can give their opinion.

This year’s Fair will still take place Aug. 20-Sept. 5. If the organizers do move ahead with the date change, it would be for the 2018 event or later.

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll below.