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Calgary Stampede: What's Hot & Not

Stampede dates: July 9-18, 2010

Wrtten by: Mark Ruthenberg

These notes are from Stampede 2008, and will be updated after the first day of Stampede 2009:
On attending the first day of Stampede, we received feedback from several Stampede visitors noted the following:

Five Things that are HOT at the Stampede

• Nashville North is finally a non-smoking bar (thank you Ed Stelmach!), so everyone gets a good view of the bands, even from the back.
  
  
• Rush seats for rodeo and chuckwagons. They're cheap and you're closer to the action than all but infield seats (see photo, at right)
  
  
• The cooling misters (100 m north of Nashille North). Its nice not to force visitors to pay $3 for water to avoid becoming an ER statistic.
  
  
• The bar-coded cards for rides and games. Beats carrying long rolls of tickets, and doesn't fall out of your pocket on the really fun rides.
  
  
• Hand sanitizer stations around food kiosks and animal exhibits. Moms and the Health Department have got to be happy about this one!
  
  
• 24 hour LRT service to get to or from the grounds (not to mention the downtown bars & "saloons")

Five that are NOT HOT at the Stampede

• Lack of Parking with all the condo development, parking lots have been replaced by construction sites. Solution: take the C-Train.
  
  
• The long lines for rides. Especially with no shade from the sun, and when some of the lines are a half hour or more (Solution: use the misters, above)
  
  
• The dream home. The house seems like a collection of overly-furnished tiny rooms, each of which is a clostrophobe's nightmare, made even worse by the crowds snaking through at a snail's pace.
  
  
• Young people dressing like a rap video. If you're not going to dress western, you can dress comfortable without killing the spirit! (You don't want this to turn into another "Capital Ex" do you?)
  
  
• The Stampede Casino It used to be a "good cause" to support he Stampede, but is now privately owned and run, not by the Stampede Board. But at least, this is non-smoking now, too.