One of Edmonton’s largest summer festivals has wrapped up for another year. Sunday night marked the end of the 2019 K-Days festival, with more than 700,000 people taking part in the 10-day fair.
This year’s attendance took a pretty big hit, due to extreme weather on a number of key days, according to Northlands president and CEO Peter Male. This summer, 702,327 people attended K-Days, down from 808,009 in 2018 and 816,250 in 2017.
In fact, this year’s attendance at K-Days was the lowest it’s been since 2006.
“In all honesty, it really is the weather,” Male said.
“It was a tough fair for us. If you look at the weather last year compared to this year, there were little showers last year. But this year we had four major weather days, which many events have faced in the city of Edmonton in the last little while.”
LISTEN BELOW: Peter Male joins the 630 CHED Afternoon News to talk about the future of Northlands and aK-Days
Male said it’s typical to budget for two to three days of rain during a 10-day event such as K-Days, then you hope they don’t happen on key days.
“Unfortunately, two of our traditionally biggest days — the opening Friday and our largest day, the final Saturday — were deeply affected by extreme wind, rain and thunderstorms this year,” Male said.
“You build the best event you can and sometimes you hit a great weather run, and sometimes weather hits you. This year at K-Days it was the latter.
“The Saturday rain out was really difficult on us.”
Northlands said this year’s concert line-up, which included The Offspring, Aqua and Kip Moore, helped draw in crowds. The special experience tickets for both The Offspring and Aqua concerts were sold out, Male said.
LISTEN BELOW: Global News weather specialist Phil Darlington joins the Ryan Jespersen show to talk about Edmonton’s sopping summer
This year also saw an attempt to break a Guinness World Record, with hundreds of people gathering to try to top the record books for the largest performance of the Baby Shark dance.
Watch below: People attempt to break a Guinness World Record by dancing to Baby Shark
Here’s a closer look at K-Days 2019, by the numbers:
1.1 million – midway rides enjoyed
158,512 – teddy bears won
38,000+ – Bags of mini donuts sold
35,000+ – Butter Beer Ice Cream sold
15,000+ – Slushes sold
9,000+ – Corn dogs sold
8,000+ – Candy apples sold
5,000 – Items returned to the lost and found
2,000 – Animals on display at K-Days
903 – K-Days volunteers
737 – Staff members
357 – Vehicles and tractor trailers to move the show
1 – Wish granted by Make a Wish Foundation
With redevelopment slated at what’s now known as the Edmonton Exhibition Lands, K-Days will eventually have to find a new home. Male said no matter what, the fair will go on.
“Whatever changes, this fair has been here for 140 years. It is not going away,” he said Monday.
“These are amazing events. They have huge social and economic impact and they’re very close to people’s hearts and traditions. So they go on and they will continue to go on. So we will go on and we will work with people and if change presents itself, we will just adapt to that change and continue to move forward.”
Planning is already underway for K-Days 2020, which Male promises will include “an exciting new program across exhibits, entertainment and overall look and feel of the event.”