CARSTAIRS - Although the 2024 Carstairs Horticultural and Craft Show has been cancelled, organizers hope to revive the event in 2025, says committee chair Stephanie Nunez-Braatz.
The 2024 event was planned for the third weekend in August, but organizers had to cancel when not enough planning and organizing volunteers could be found, she said.
“The decision has been to delay it until 2025,” said Nunez-Braatz.
The event has been held in Carstairs for many decades – the 2024 event would have been the 77th.
Falling under the auspices of the Carstairs and District Agricultural Society, the show typically involves the display of items including gardening produce, crafting, painting, knitting, baking and canning.
“People enter them into the show and following that the items are judged by professional judges,” she said.
Asked why the 2024 show has been cancelled, she said, “Essentially the issue we came across early on was our volunteerism and our sponsorship. We struggled to get volunteers that would commit to the eight month planning period for the show, with work typically starting in January or February in order to get ready for that August show date.”
Everyone who was on the committee in 2023 stepped down prior to work getting underway for the 2024 event, she noted.
“A lot of them had been volunteering for a significant amount of years,” she said.
Attempts to garner individual and corporate sponsorship also came up short, she said.
“The plan is to run a show for 2025,” she said. “If we can get the sponsorship and the volunteers, I think it could be awesome. We just need to get there.”
Next year’s show may focus a bit more on youth, she said.
