Winter e-News Update

2021 Year in Review

The events we love to attend and recruit began to chart a slow and steady return this year, with an abundance of caution and extensive safety precautions in place. Small craft sales and gatherings slowly paved the way for Food Truck Warz, Mini Fairs, Ag Ex and Wheat Kings games. Events are back, and we are so ready!

Food Truck Warz 2021

The last two years of pandemic restrictions really meant a complete stop to the events Brandon First loves to recruit and that our partners love to host through 2020 and the first part of 2021. But this summer, we were able to see a return of these types of gatherings with the successful hosting of the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba’s Midway Madness and BDNMB’s Food Truck Warz. Both events brought entertainment, great food and carnival style games and rides for people to enjoy and were well received and well attended, while being able to be responsible and covid-safe. We are looking forward to the hosting of even more events in 2022 and beyond!

Sport events also began to return this summer with the U16 Manitoba Softball Association Provincial Championships held Sept 11 and 12, 2021. Check out our photo gallery of the semi-final matchup between the Westman Magic and Winnipeg Lightning below!

Brandon First launched two new portals on our website this year: The first is our RFP/Event Proposal page where event organizers and hosts can tell us about the details of the event they’d like to see us bring to Brandon, as well as attaching bid documents and additional information.

The other is a Volunteer Portal where you can sign up for our Volunteer Opportunities mailing list. It’s the best way to get the behind-the-scenes event experience, meet the most amazing people and give back to your community! Sign up by filling out the simple form here, and be the first to know about upcoming opportunities, get involved by joining a planning committee, or join the volunteer workforce for event execution on site as events happen!

AGM by Zoom

We hosted our first fully virtual AGM in June where we welcomed Katrina Sigurdson and Jeff Schumacher to the Executive Board Committee as Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Financial statements were presented by our auditors, BDO LLP followed by a Year in Review by our Board Chair Chris Heide. Check out the 2020/2021 year in review portion below:

Later in the year we also welcomed new board member Janis Evens to the board table. Our entire list of current board members can be seen on the Board page of our website here. We are excited to have this team of people leading event recruitment in Brandon into the future and look forward to working together to bring events back to Brandon in a post-pandemic world.

Brandon Highlighted by Sport Tourism Canada

In August, Sport Tourism Canada, the national sport events organization we are a member of, selected Brandon as it’s member spotlight city. This article gave us a chance to promote Brandon’s incredible sport facilities, hospitality, previous hosting experience, volunteerism and event hosting capabilities. Over 19,000 people were reached through our Facebook page and many others viewed it through promotional channels outside of Brandon.

See the complete profile at https://sporttourismcanada.com/member-spotlight-brandon and see why Brandon is the best place to host sport events!

For more information on future multi-day events please visit our Upcoming Events page regularly.

From the Board and Staff of Brandon First we would like to sincerely thank each and every one of our valued Stakeholder Member Businesses for another year of support.

We could not continue to bring the best events to Brandon in the future if not for the generosity of our events community.

If your business is not yet a Brandon First stakeholder and you would like more information you can call our office at 204-729-2156 or click here for details on membership.

2022 Membership invoices will be sent out in January: if you have questions about your membership level or the benefits you receive please reach out to us at info@brandonfirst.com or call us at the office.