No attendance records this time but North Bay curling event guru Mark Brown says the Pinty's Boost National 2022 curling event was a real success.
During the 2018 World Women's Curling event and at the 2019 Grand Slam of Curling event, North Bay broke two attendance records with more than 70,000 in attendance in 2018 and about 37,000 attendance-wise in 2019.
This year the attendance numbers were just over 27,000 seats. It was not a record-setting week for attendance but that’s not a disappointment for the organizers.
“We did not expect to fill the arena," admitted Brown.
"It was not like the World Women’s where we were able to have some sellouts or draws that type of thing and the fact is we have done three events in the past five years and that impacts the attendance figures as do the lingering issues with Covid; people being unsure if they want to be in a big crowd. There were other mitigating circumstances that we had no control over so we were prepared for the numbers to be somewhat lower. We were very pleased as was Sportsnet as they were happy with our attendance figures."
Brown says the well-organized event did not run into any major snags.
"We really did not run into any major problems and nothing that we could not handle,” he said.
Brown feels the city did a great job welcoming the teams to North Bay. He says the fans were impressive too.
"The fans were enthusiastic with what they were seeing on the ice and the support from our business partners in the community was outstanding," he said.
"It was a great example of how North Bay can host world-class events and how successful they can be at the Gardens.
"The players had been playing close to two years with nobody in the building and they were really pleased and happy to get this type of response from the community. It makes it much more enjoyable for the players when they are playing in front of a large crowd and that is something we can be very proud of."
Brown admits that having an event during the Thanksgiving weekend hampered attendance numbers.
"We knew that was going to impact it as well," said Brown about the Thanksgiving weekend event.
"I guess when we signed on to the event we did not look as closely that Thanksgiving was happening that weekend as we were just happy it was coming back and that is something we will discuss with Rogers (Sportsnet) in the future because if you have it on this weekend it really can limit your attendance figures."
See BayToday's coverage from the Boost National 2022:
- Gushue outlasts Edin to capture Pinty's Boost National 2022
- Clean sweep as Team Tirinzoni claims Pinty's Boost National 2022
- Saturday round-up: Boost National curling at Memorial Gardens
- Day 4 round-up from Boost National curling at Memorial Gardens
- Day 3 round-up from Boost National curling at Memorial Gardens
- Day 2 round-up from Boost National curling at Memorial Gardens
- Day 1 round-up from Boost National curling at Memorial Gardens
