Saskatoon Ex cancelled for first time in 135-year history

For the first time in its nearly 135-year history, the Saskatoon Ex has been cancelled.

Prairieland Park, which manages and hosts the yearly summer tradition, made the announcement Monday morning.

“With the health of our community in mind, Prairieland Park has made the difficult decision to cancel the EX for this year,” Prairieland Park’s press release reads.

Kristy Rempel is Prairieland Park’s marketing manager. She told 650 CKOM that the annual event usually employs over 600 people and welcomes around 215,000 through its gates during the five-day event.

Rempel says Prairieland Park has been “dark since March” and they do hope to continue the annual Saskatoon summer tradition in 2021, but a lot falls on how the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold.

“We are definitely planning to be back next year. That will depend a lot on COVID, and limitations and public gatherings,” she said.

“We do hope that we get to a point where we can do these community (gatherings). That’s really what Prairieland is all about.”

2020 would have been the 135th anniversary of the fair, which began in 1886. Rempel explained that they have only had to shorten the fair once in its history due to weather, but nothing has been able to completely derail the event until now.

“The Exhibition, way back when, was started to sort of prove that the temperance colony of Saskatoon was ready to become a full-fledged city. It showed the economic and agricultural viability of the area, and it’s been going on every single year since,” she said.

In terms of financials, Rempel wasn’t able to give a definitive number of how much Prairieland Park expects to lose by not holding the Ex this summer.

“There are lots of pieces in play. If we don’t have a lot of the expenses, then it changes the revenue, so there are a lot more details that will have to be looked at,” she explained.

Moving forward, Rempel says they will continue to wait and see what limitations will be lifted, but they have turned their focus to a timeframe that doesn’t include the summer of 2020.

“We’re looking towards the fall,” she said. “We have to go by what the public gatherings (limitations are), so we are like everyone else, and we are just waiting to hear when possibly our industry might be opened up.”

The Saskatoon Ex was scheduled to run from Aug. 4-9 this summer.