Organizers of the Fifth Annual Smoke 'N' Spurs Festival held in Powassan over the Labour Day weekend, will spend the next few weeks number crunching, but they're already calling it a success.
Event co-chair Lea Davis says the three-day outdoor festival, which focuses on 'horses and horsepower', is expanding beyond their expectations.
"It's grown faster and larger than what we actually anticipated. The first year we had 37 camp sites, this year we had over 600, and about 125 of those were last minute walk-in's," said Davis. "We won't know the final attendance numbers for awhile, but we do know we're bigger than last year, and last year we saw about 4,500 people come through the gate."
The festival includes a rodeo, a live outdoor concert, truck Show 'n' Shine, ATV Mud Bogs, and Truck and Tractor Pulls.
Davis credits Powassan businessman Lorne Byers for getting the festival started.
"He manufactures horse stalls and rodeo rings and temporary fencing and all that. He has a friend who has a rodeo production and between the two of them, they came up with the idea to do something different for the region and bring rodeo to Powassan."
Rawhide Rodeo Company has over three decades of rodeo experience.
It provided the standard events of rodeo, as well as some optional ones. They included bareback and saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing, tie-down roping, breakaway roping, and what some consider the most dangerous sport in the world, bull riding.
Company operator BJ Prince says this festival is an important stop for the 230 competitors.
"The professional rodeo sanctioned by the International Professional Rodeo Association is comprised of cowboys and cowgirls coming from five different countries; Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. They compete for world championship points. This Smoke 'N' Spurs Festival is actually one of the stops on their way to qualify for the world finals in Oklahoma, in January."
Arturo Gallegos finished fourth in the team roping competition.
"Back in Mexico we had steers and we ran a cattle business and I learned to ride and to rope steers. I love it. I love being in competitions. I always have fun and it's a very good organization, so I'm happy to be part of it."
For those interested in a different kind of horse power, there was truck and tractor pulling.
Garry Sanderson is a member of the Ontario Truck and Tractor Pulling Association.
"This is an association that goes around to local fairs and events to help put on a show. I happen to be a member of the Vintage Class which is a pre-1960 antique tractor," said Sanderson.
"When it's muddy like today we have to adjust the weight on the vehicle, maybe a bit more on the back end instead of the front end because the traction is different when we have moisture like this. But it's part of truck and tractor pulling, it's part of the rodeo. You go with the flow."
Every year brings ideas for improvement. The organizing committee is already considering making two entrances next year, to handle the high volume of traffic.
Davis expects it will take about three weeks to complete all the paper work to arrive at their bottom line. Once that is done, the committee will select four or five charities or organizations, and make donations to them based on their needs.
Last year they divided up just over $5,000.
