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Highland Games cancels 2017 event

Organizers of the Foothills Highland Games have postponed this year’s event until 2018 for financial reasons and difficulties securing a venue in time.

Organizers of the Foothills Highland Games have postponed this year’s event until 2018 for financial reasons and difficulties securing a venue in time.

The Games’ organizing committee had to move from its home on the Foothills Falcons Field for this year and had planned to move to the field at St. John Paul II Collegiate. The event was also to be held a month earlier than usual on July 29.

Dave Roe, Games committee chairman, said it ended up having to make the difficult decision to cancel this year’s event due to financial problems and unexpected difficulties with the move.

He said they weren’t able to secure the venues as planned and the committee couldn’t afford to rent additional tents required in the event of poor weather.

“The logistics didn’t pan out the way we would’ve liked and due to out financial constraints, we’re unable to provide the required infrastructure for some of the competitions to be held,” said Roe.

As well, he said the committee ended up with several unexpected costs last year that impacted its ability to host this year’s event. In past years the Highland dance competition could be moved inside the Foothills Composite High School, but it wasn’t able to do so in 2016 because of modernization work. As a result, additional tents had to be rented, which turned out to be a financial hit for the organization.

“It was a huge cost to us, it really hurt our bottom line,” he said.

This year would’ve marked the 18th year for the annual event. After moving from High River to Okotoks in 2010, it became one of the biggest annual events in town attracting more than 3,000 people.

The Games are postponed, but the committee is planning to continue with plans to host a ceilidh as a fundraiser on July 29 at the Foothills Centennial Centre.

“We’ll use that as a fundraiser to put toward next years games and the planning,” said Roe.

The games will return in 2018, he said, and the organizing committee is working to put the event on a stronger footing going forward.

“The aim is to return next year, that being said we also need to bolster our committee to bring the games to fruition,” he said. “There are several key areas we want to move forward on and we need a bigger committee to do it.”

Roe said they want to remain in the Foothills area.

“We’re going to have to explore all our options that we have available to our committee to see what we to have in our event,” he said.

Roe said the organizers are limited on what they would like to do with the event at locations within Okotoks. He said they need a site five to 10 acres in size, as well as a venue available to move indoors in the event of poor weather.

“There are other things we’d like to have within the Games but we can’t have because there’s just not a suitable location,” he said.

As it moves forward, Roe said the committee is grateful for all the support it has received over the last 18 years from sponsors, vendors, the Town of Okotoks, competitors and visitors.

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