YORKTON - Over the years Yorkton has been home to a plethora of events thanks to the efforts of a legion of dedicated volunteers.
But, events tend to end up spaced across the weekends of the year, each entertaining in its own way, but almost always created in isolation of what might be a bigger community-wide effort.
That isn’t to suggest every smaller undertaking isn’t good for the city, each has supporters and fans and that is important locally.
But, what would happen if a series of ‘smaller’ events were chained into a more cohesive event with the potential to attract a larger audience?
This past weekend it sort of happened organically, with a number of events held which all related to vehicles – Big Brothers and Big Sisters held their car show, the Rolling Thunder Cruisers Car Club, the Ram Monsters & Mayhem Tour in front of the Legacy Coop Grandstand, Big Rig Show hosted by Tapps Sports Lounge & Grill, Yorkton Motocross Club and stock car racing although the latter two were cancelled due to rain.
If you are a fan of shiny metal, and squealing tires, and flying dust, and all the rest of the things which attract people to the range of vehicular hobbies, you would have been rather happy in Yorkton on the weekend.
And, therein lies the thinking behind chaining events.
If you are a car buff in Saskatoon you might not drive to Yorkton for any one of the listed events listed above. But, when you can take in all of them on one summer weekend trip you are far more apt to mark the calendar and head east when the dates arrive. That is the essence of tourism, creating something on the community people from outside will want to travel to attend.
Once you attract the tourist hotel rooms are filled, restaurants serve more food, gas stations sell more fuel, the Western Development Museum and Godfrey Dean Gallery might see more visitors, and the list goes on.
Now, the events on the weekend appear to have all happened over two days rather organically, and there certainly wasn’t a collective effort to advertise the diverse weekend, but the foundation for such co-operation certainly seems in place. It just takes a collectively effort to now build on that foundation.
Does for example the WDM host a vintage car afternoon the same weekend next year?
Does pARTners Gallery put out a call for ‘car-inspired’ art next July?
Do we see radio-controlled car racing in the Parkland Mall parking lot?
The sky’s really the limit and for one weekend we could make Yorkton the car fan mecca of the Prairies if we just collectively dream big enough.
