Lacombe has officially been named as the winner of the legendary One Horse Town country music event, presented by Coors Banquet.
The concert will bring country music stars Tim Hicks and The Road Hammers to the City on Sept. 18th. Citizens of the community were asked to vote in order to show participation and support for the event and the efforts have paid off.
“First, I think just to be able to come out on top is a nice acknowledgement for the community,” said the City’s Community Economic Development Manager Guy Lapointe.
“There were 1,000 communities nominated and we were shortlisted. Everybody stepped up and made this happen - I think it’s a great acknowledgement of what we can do as a community when we work together.”
Voting started on Aug. 3rd, closed on Aug. 17th and a winner was announced on Aug. 24th.
“Obviously, it’s great to have some exposure here. It will happen on a national stage. At one point, there was going to be an announcement on the Canadian Country Music Awards on Sept. 13th, but that might be too close to the event date. However if that happens, it’s great exposure for us on a national scale.”
The concert is a free event but there is a maximum capacity at the currently undisclosed venue location. This means that people must go to www.coorsbanquet.ca/oht to register for a ticket to the concert.
According to the Coors Banquet web site, tickets will be available at the aforementioned web address starting Aug. 27th. Tickets are free and only available to residents of Lacombe, Lacombe County and Blackfalds who are of legal drinking age.
There is a limit of two tickets per resident per household while quantities last.
“They will be airing the concert. It might be live, it might be recorded or they might do both. And the last time I spoke to the reps, I was told there was the potential for a documentary of the making of the concert. That’s a lot of exposure for a little community like ours,” Lapointe said.
“Beyond that, there is a community-building piece. People get to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime event for Lacombe.
“There is also an economic development piece to this. Coors is giving away 300 tickets to people outside of the community. I’m not sure how they’re distributing it, but either way that is 300 people coming into our community that will be staying in our hotels, shopping in our community at that time and things like that. There is the exposure piece but there is also a practical side of this where people will see a bit of a bump in sales and economic development around that time.”
kmendonsa@lacombeexpress.com