‘Exactly what we had hoped:’ Grey Cup Festival gets rave reviews

After years of planning and a week of action, the Grey Cup Festival in Regina is over.

On Monday, Saskatchewan Roughriders president-CEO and Festival co-chair Craig Reynolds said there was a sense of accomplishment that things went off well.

“There’s emotions because you’re sort of sad it’s over,” Reynolds said during a media conference at the International Trade Centre. “We’ve been talking about it for so long and we’ve been looking forward to it for so long. But you’re also just so overwhelmed that it went so well and people enjoyed themselves.

“It was exactly what we had hoped, which is bringing people together post-pandemic and having people enjoy everything that’s fantastic about the CFL.”

Reynolds credited the 1,200 volunteers who planned and executed the Festival and made it a fan- and family-friendly event.

Holding nearly everything on the REAL District campus — from most of the team rooms to fan activities to an esports tournament to Sunday’s Grey Cup game — generated a positive reaction.

“Locally, everybody understands what we have here, but I heard that a lot from folks who had travelled here, just how amazing these facilities are (and) how lucky we are to have everything on one footprint,” Reynolds said.

“It was one of our themes in the bid and we really talked about that a lot — and the REAL District came alive.”

Reynolds said it would be months before organizers determined if the Festival made money, but he’s confident it will finish in the black.

“It was an outstanding week from a revenue perspective,” he said. “All the team party rooms were completely packed. We actually ran out of alcohol in certain cases and food in certain other cases and had to restock.

“Attendance exceeded our expectations for sure and with attendance usually comes profitability and revenue — and every event was like that.”

He said the game was sold out, even though hundreds of empty seats could be seen inside Mosaic Stadium as the Toronto Argonauts beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 24-23. He believes it was because people didn’t stay in their seats.

“We saw play out exactly what we had in mind when we designed the stadium,” Reynolds said. “We wanted it to be a social experience and we saw that. We saw thousands of people on the concourse. The drink rails were three-deep. We had tremendous turnout, to be quite honest with you.

“When you have a cold-weather game like that with some people maybe not as vested into the score, they don’t spend as much time in their seats.”

Reynolds felt many of the seats that were empty during the game filled up as people returned to watch the halftime show.

“Any event is going to have some no-shows and when we looked at the no-show rate, it was similar to what we’d see at other major events similar to the Labour Day (Classic) or actually the opening game of the stadium,” he said.

Reynolds confirmed many tickets were put up for resale in the days leading up to the game by fans who didn’t want to attend while other tickets were released late by organizers.

There are plenty of reasons why people may not have showed up, including the temperature, a lack of interest in the two combatants or simply a change of plans.

“That’s going to happen at every major event,” Reynolds said. “It happens every year at Grey Cup and it happened this week.”

Fans heading home

Fans from across the country were leaving from Regina’s airport Monday after a weekend of fun.

Keenan Taylor-Brown came from Edmonton and said he was happy with how everything played out.

“I flew in on Friday and thought the Festival was great and a lot of fun,” said Taylor-Brown, who was attending his third Grey Cup. “I was a little surprised being in Regina that the stands were as empty as they were, but overall, I think the city put on a really good Festival.”

Matt and Ron Haynes came from Winnipeg for the game. While they were still hurting after the Bombers’ loss, they both noted they were impressed with how Regina welcomed the country.

“The week was actually fantastic. All the venues were great. We had a lot of fun there,” said Ron. “It was our first time in this stadium and all the fans were a lot of fun. The game was a little disappointing, obviously. We thought we were going to do a three-peat, but it didn’t happen.”

Matt suggested Grey Cup 109 was one of the best he had ever been to.

“I thought this weekend was fantastic,” he said. “This is our eighth Grey Cup together, so I would say it’s probably top three for sure.”

They both said they also were disappointed by the number of empty seats they saw on game day.

Ron suggested the Riders fans who stayed away might’ve been a little burned out after what was a rocky season for the home club.

“I’m on a Riders Facebook group and a lot of tickets started showing up for sale (after the Bombers made it),” he said. “I wonder as well with the Bombers being in it, a lot of people were kind of tired and some of the results and the Garrett Marino incident. I think people were just kind of burnt out.”

George LeGresley and a couple friends from Ontario made the trip for the game, but had to stay in Wilcox because there weren’t any hotels available in Regina.

Despite not being in the city, they were all pleased with how this weekend turned out.

“We had a great time,” said LeGresley, who has been to more than 15 Grey Cups. “(The festival) was a great place for kids. There was lots of stuff to do and was one of the best I’ve seen.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Shane Clausing