If you haven’t made it down to Capital EX yet, you’d better hurry – Sunday is the final day for this year’s edition of the ex! Sharon and I made our annual visit last weekend, and ate way too much, enabled by a media package that gave us free food. It was fun, with some hits and some misses, but for the most part I found the experience similar to previous years.
One of the new features this year was Ribfest. Its location was a little odd, but the ribs and pulled pork were both delicious. I’d like to see the competition aspect expanded in future years, especially as the vendors themselves seemed to enjoy showcasing their many trophies from around North America!
While walking the midway we happened upon the Canadian Beef Bacon wagon from Calgary. We decided to order the sliders, which gave us a nice sampler. To me it tasted a little like breakfast, with the beef bacon, an egg, and maple syrup-flavored bun. I really enjoyed it!
Of course, no trip to Capital EX is complete without a corn dog and Those Little Donuts! Both were delicious.
Forgive the picture, it’s all I’ve got!
Tomorrow is also the last day to Name Your Fair. Northlands is looking to rename the event next year, and after crowdsourcing suggestions from the public, narrowed the list of options down to six (with the help of partners Global Edmonton and the Edmonton Journal):
- EdFest
- The Edmonton Exhibition
- Edmonton Summer Exhibition
- K-Days
- River City Festival
- River City Summer Fair
Amazingly, that uninspired list is what they came up with after considering the following criteria:
- Relevance to the 21st century ahead.
- Consideration of the incredible historic growth and continued diversification of Edmonton’s multi-cultural fabric.
- Defining of the community spirit and outwardly fun characteristics that make Edmontonians who they are.
- Embracing of all demographics from new 21st century babies through to our shining senior citizens.
- Creative platforms enabling commercial partners to activate and deliver diverse and intriguing experiences.
- Agility that will allow a fresh and exciting new theme to be incorporated every year.
K-Days barely has any relevance to our past let alone our future. River City, while often used in Edmonton, could describe most cities in the world. And while the event is an exhibition, that’s not exactly the most exciting name.
Why rename the event? Probably because attendance peaked in 2005, right before Klondike Days was renamed Capital EX. Maybe this is a case of garbage-in, garbage-out, but I find it hard to believe that those six names were the best suggestions the committee received. I don’t think crowdsourcing was the way to go this year. I think that no matter what the next name is, Edmontonians will like it better than Capital EX, simply because it will not have been the unlucky name to replace the beloved Klondike Days. For that reason, I think hiring an agency to do a complete rebrand would have been a better decision.
According to a news release sent out this morning, more than 40,000 votes have been cast in the Name Your Fair contest. It’ll be very interesting to see how many of them are for K-Days. You have until 6pm tomorrow evening to vote.
If those six names are the only options, I don’t really care which one wins. I just hope they still have corn dogs!
MasterMaq's Blog 
I agree with you on using an agency for a re-brand. when you’re looking at building an audience and improving attendance for a large public event, best not to leave it to chance. none-of the choices are at all inspiring…
Did you try the Jalapeno Corn Dogs? They were delicious!
Didn’t see them until after I had ordered my corn dog unfortunately!
Yeah, most of the new suggestions are terrible. I chose “K-Days” when I voted, simply because everyone still calls it that anyway.
Minor correction, though: tomorrow isn’t the last day; Sunday is.
Ah you’re totally right. Fixed, thanks!
They’ve typically ended it on the Saturday, rather than the Sunday, so it’s an easy mistake to make.