Although Sunday’s headline show was shutdown early due to an emergency weather alert, it was another successful Dauphin’s Countryfest and president Duane McMaster couldn’t be happier.
McMaster said this year’s ticket sales were stronger than last year, although the final numbers have yet to be tabulated.
“More than twice as many tickets were sold this year than last year. So we’re happy with ticket sales,” he said.
“I’ll never say I’m totally satisfied with ticket sales. Unless I don’t have any left to sell, I’m not totally satisfied.”
McMaster was pleased with how the weekend had gone heading into Sunday’s performances, noting there were few problems.
“Everything has gone smoothly at the gates. What problems we have had have been relatively minor and dealt with efficiently by the staff and the volunteers,” he said.
The entertainment, McMaster added, was fantastic, noting there have been a lot of positive comments about the shows.
Although he doesn’t know the numbers, McMaster was impressed with the crowds in the amphitheater, noting the stands were close to, or at capacity, both Friday and Saturday.
“That was a great crowd (Saturday) night. And it was so great to see everybody out there having a great time. I posted online, I said it’s been a few years since I’ve seen the stands looking like that. It was really great to see it back like that,” he said.
“Countryfest has been around for an awful long time and we just love having a huge crowd, people here enjoying what we work every year so hard to present to them.”
New to Countryfest this year were metal detectors at the entrances, which were part of a partnership with Manitoba Provincial Exhibition.
“Obviously, we can’t afford them on our own, so we did make an annual arrangement to do that, again try and promote safety in our venue. Make sure people aren’t bringing in stuff that shouldn’t be present in the area,” McMaster said.
Along with a new and larger VIP tent, Countryfest also had new vendors and activities including a poker derby, miniature golf and a horse shoe pit.
McMaster noted there were also the old standard favourites, such as helicopter rides, a flip cup competition and perogy eating contest.
“Everything has been really good. I always strive to offer a different and better experience to our patrons from year to year,” he said.
With rain forecast for Saturday, the schedule for the main stage was adjusted with performers hitting the stage earlier than advertised.
“That was pretty challenging. I’m not really heavily involved in the production side of it. But going in and working with Rob and Shelley (Waloschuk) and the production team a little bit when we tried to adjust the schedule, there’s an awful lot of moving parts and that was quite a challenge,” he said.
“It would have been nice if we didn’t have to make that change, but we managed to pull it off and everything worked out. We got everything done.”
McMaster feels they lucked out, because rain was forecast for Saturday and Sunday, but it held off until Sunday’s final main stage show.
“It’s been a really good year. (Saturday) night’s entertainment was just phenomenal. I’m sure (Sunday) is going to be fantastic and Friday night was great,” he said.
“I believe that pyro and everything with Jelly Roll’s show, that was pretty much next level. We may have raised the bar at Countryfest. It’s going to be hard to top that one.”
One of Countryfest’s goals has always been to promote local Manitoba artists. That was the case when Dauphin’s The Wet Towels was the first band to perform at Thursday’s kick off party.
“I loved that. We’ve always tried to develop and promote local music, Manitoba music. We used to have the talent contest years ago. We still do the Battle of the Bands up here. I think last year we had a Battle of the Bands in Winnipeg for a chance to play up here,” McMaster said, noting local bands The Wet Towels, Revolving Doors and Kate’s Outlaw, which has two albums out and made their main stage debut last year, all performed at this year’s Countryfest.
McMaster said it is sometimes a struggle to book performers, especially big name acts, because they are often in such big demand.
“It’s quite something for us to be able to say, ‘performing for the first time at Countryfest.’ That’s a bit of an oddity for us,” he said.
McMaster was most impressed with the concert experience provided by Saturday headliner Jelly Roll.
“He’s a pretty amazing individual. Watching that and seeing how he interacted with the crowd and the crowd interacted with him was pretty special. I think it was pretty cool to be there for that,” he said, adding it was a special moment when Jelly Roll recognized a fan for celebrating 7,162 days of sobriety.
After being invited for a number of years, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and his wife Lisa, who used to live and practice medicine in Dauphin, attended this year’s event.
After his show, Jelly Roll threw his hat into the crowd. Kinew was the first to get to it and he immediately gave it to a young fan sitting in the front row, bringing the youngster to tears.
“That was really cool. It was nice to see them here and just enjoying the show and being regular people. Out here to have a good time like the rest of us and enjoy some good country music,” McMaster said.
With the challenge to book entertainers, planning for next year began two months ago.
“You have to start planning that far in advance, because there are already people who are booked for that weekend. When you get to the bigger names, there’s a lot of demand for them,” McMaster said.