The 2025 Williams Lake Stampede was one of the most economically successful years to date for its Association, but the Stampede Board is calling for help.
The Stampede Association’s Board Director, Court Smith, presented the findings at Tuesday, September 16’s Williams Lake City Council Meeting, which data was compiled using the Canadian Sports Alliance Software.
During the Stampede, over 350 competitors took to the Grounds. There were 60 vendors, 212 sponsors, and a payout of $215,000 across the weekend.
“The analysis indicated that the direct economic impact to just the city of Williams Lake is in excess of $5 million,” says Smith. “17,500 people from all over the country, even the United States, were in attendance for the Stampede, just from ticket sales, we’re not including the VIP sales in that number. This shows that we are on the national map as far as rodeos go.”
However, Smith also came to the council meeting to advocate for a “strong partnership” between the Stampede Association and the City of Williams Lake, to create a more long-term solution for the Stampede to be a sustainable event.
According to Smith, the 2025 Stampede was primarily organized by the 17-member Board of Directors of the Stampede Association and 212 volunteers, making the Stampede Association run the Lake City’s biggest economic event “without a whole heck of a lot of support”. Smith says that many volunteers and directors have been experiencing burnout while organizing the Stampede in recent years.
“ Since 2020, there’s been a decline in the number of volunteers. A low estimate of hours a volunteer contributes would be 40 to 45 hours a week, often on work weeks. It takes a huge commitment, and that’s becoming more and more of a challenge.”
Another challenge that Smith voiced to City Council, was the increased financial stress to organize the Stampede. Smith shows that the insurance costs alone have increased from $25,000 to $45,000. The City of Williams Lake approves the Stampede Association at $25,000 grant each year, which Smith is “no longer cuts it.”
Smith mentioned that the City of Cloverdale in the Lower Mainland, has it’s own rodeo, that the City of Cloverdale assists and gives money towards. While not as big as the Williams Lake Stampede, the City of Cloverdale gives its rodeo committee $300,000 a year to produce the rodeo, as well as some staffing during the event.
The final challenge Smith voiced, was the management of the Stampede Grounds facilities.
“The Diamond of the Lake City” as Smith called it, currently only has one paid employee that helps manage all of the Grounds’ facilities. The rest of the duties that the employee cannot handle, often falls onto the 17 board directors.
As the Williams Stampede is coming up on its centennial milestone, Smith approached City Council asking for a collaboration effort between the Stampede Association and the City, to make running the Stampede easier, and include a stronger path forward be put into the City’s OCP.
Mayor Surinderpal Rathor was all for the idea, saying he “understands the challenges” well, having spent time working as a volunteer with the Stampede Association, one year. Rathor also said that “working together with every organization, is the unwritten mission of this council.”
Councillor Joan Flaspohler, also spoke, saying with the Stampede garnering national interest there is a strong need to make a partnership between the Association and the City.
Councillor Scott Nelson also spoke on the importance of establishing a partnership to keep the Stampede as one of the Lake City’s cultural keys.
“ It is an important economic attraction to our community. I’m getting the message that we need to sit down together and work together for a long-term strategy to ensure that this is sustainable.”
Nelson put a motion forward for Council and City Staff to create, what ended up becoming, a 10-point “action plan” to help the Stampede Association, which included:
- long-term sustainability
- Long term partnership opportunities
- Five year plan opportunities
- Tie in the hundred stamped as a community catalyst
- An action plan to continue to enhance and grow the stampede
- To maintain the importance of the stampede is a cultural key, and tourist attraction
- The long-term facilities economic life cycle
- Address volunteer burnout.
- Address financial stress
- And the management of the facility.
The motion was passed unanimously.
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