After missing the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair for the past two years, due to the pandemic, the annual event returned to the Keystone Centre this week and thrilled thousands.
The Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba has announced that the 2022 Royal Manitoba Winter Fair welcomed close to 43,000 people through its gates for six days of family, friendly fun at Brandon’s Keystone Centre.
After having been forced to cancel both the 2020 and 2021 events, the Exhibition expected numbers to be down this year but were encouraged by the strong turnout.
“To do what we did in a short period of time was quite remarkable,” says Exhibition President Kathy Cleaver. “Once we decided to move forward, we committed ourselves to making this a great show and I’m satisfied that we did just that.”
“I saw a lot of smiling faces this past week and having seen so many friends, who haven’t seen one another for some time, getting together makes me happy,” she went on to say.
In 2019, over 50,000 went through the turnstiles, translating to an average of over 8,300 per day.
Event organizers are proud of the fact that this week’s fair marked the first large scale event held in western Manitoba since the province lifted most of its covid restrictions in February. Over seven thousand visitors a day were entertained by magicians, fiddlers, dynamic dogs, heavy horses, show jumpers, baby animals and more.
“We’re so fortunate to have had so much support during these trying times,” Cleaver added. “To think that in February we didn’t know if we’d be able to host the Fair….just a great job by everyone in helping to pull this off in such a short period of time.”
Now that the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair has come to an end, the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba will turn its attention to the annual Summer Fair, scheduled for this June.