Pillage the Village (PTV), the annual fundraiser for the Olds Municipal Library, raised about $11,000 this year, down a couple of thousand dollars from last year.
However, more people opened their wallets during the event, library manager Lesley Winfield says.
This year's fourth annual edition took place June 4 at the Cow Palace.
Winfield says the library sold about 100 fewer tickets than last year.
She says organizers changed the date of PTV this year. As a result, it conflicted with some other medieval-themed events. Winfield believes that problem and the tough economy resulted in the lower ticket sales.
“However, while our overall take-away was lower this year, it wasn't as much lower as the ticket sales. Thus, even though not as many people came, it seemed as if the people who attended opened their purses more,” she says. “There was definitely a full house with approximately 250 people attending, including guests, entertainers and volunteers.”
“All in all the feedback was fantastic once again. People seemed very excited about the event and people from all over the province continue to make Olds a must-see destination each year because of it.
“We are happy to be able to draw people from as far as Edmonton to our event,” she adds.
“We are happy to be well supported in the community and look forward to future fundraisers that help support programs and services at the Olds library.”
Winfield says it's too early to say if any changes will be made to next year's edition of PTV; organizers usually begin meeting in September to plan next year's version. However, she notes they have made changes of some sort every year.
Olds Municipal Library chair Rudy Durieux says some changes have clearly worked to keep the fundraiser fresh.
“We learn from surveys that people weren't totally happy with the vendors being outside. And neither were the vendors. So we changed it to being inside and I think we had a bigger crowd frequenting the vendors inside. A lot of them sell the same kind of stuff, jewelry, knight stuff. One of the things we did differently and we'll probably try to improve on it, is we want to attract some food vendors,” he says.
“You noticed there were ladies selling bread and pies there. That was really cool. We may try and attract more vendors in that way. We'll find ways to keep it fresh. One of the ways is to provide different entertainment."
"All in all the feedback was fantastic once again. People seemed very excited about the event and people from all over the province continue to make Olds a must-see destination each year because of it.LESLEY WINFIELD MANAGER OLDS MUNICIPAL LIBRARY
