Medicine Hat Mayor Ted Clugston does the honors at Canalta Centre's ribbon cutting ceremony. The logos were cut out of the ribbon and handed out to attendees and different people from the city.
Canalta Centre, Medicine Hat, Alberta — a project 10 years in the making — is open for business with SMG Canada at the helm after a six-night grand opening at the end of August. The $75-million home of the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers seats approximately 5,500 for hockey games and up to 7,000 for concerts, which will be a brand new entertainment option for the Medicine Hat community of about 70,000 people.
“The Canalta Centre is a great new facility that will open up immense opportunities for the citizens of this city,” said Peter Jelinski, general manager. “For the first time major international acts and entertainers will have a place in Medicine Hat, which can hold their events. You’re going to see a whole new level of entertainment, which previously had to pass by the market. From a hockey standpoint it will also be a whole new experience, modern concessions, guest services, ticketing and the overall game day experience will be light years beyond what fans previously saw when they attended a Medicine Hat Tigers game.”
The six-night grand opening catered to a different audience group with each event. It all began with a media event that Kelli Ireland, director of marketing and sales, said garnered a lot of positive feedback and good coverage. The next night, VIPs were invited to the venue, which was transformed with carpeting over the ice and a variety of food options and bars. Live music and an address from the mayor made for a special night. The next event was for club seat-holders and for those who donated to fundraising efforts. The community open house and ribbon cutting ceremony was the hallmark event of the week, attracting around 6,000 people over the three hours. Even before the event started, Ireland said 2,000 people were lined up, waiting to get in and tour the facility.
“The opening events with the city went amazing, we were the talk of the town for the entire week,” said Jelinski. “We managed to utilize that to build up excitement and have a crowd of people come check us out at our open house. Social media was positive and we know that we won over a lot of naysayers who were impressed by what they saw.”
The final event was for suite and loge box holders. They were able to check out their seats and watch a football game on the state-of-the-art score Clock.
“It’s one of the most looked at pieces when you come here and where you hear the most gasps,” said Ireland. “In our old building, it took one person to operate the old clock and now it’s a $1.5-million score clock that takes 10 people to operate. It’s a very exciting piece to have.”
Canalta Centre, Medicine Hat, Alberta.
The first concert will be held in the venue on Sept. 23 as the Tenors take the stage, and the Tigers will hold their regular season home opener on Sept. 26.
“We’ve had a month, a pretty big gap, between opening the doors of the building and letting people come in to see an event,” said Ireland. “I’ve been keeping people excited with different promotions.”
One promotion is the Golden Ticket contest, where people can enter to win two tickets to every event at the Canalta Centre for one year. They plan on going full “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” by presenting the winner with an actual golden ticket and a chocolate bar.
Ireland has also been going on radio shows every week to answer some of the questions people have about the center and the events it will host.
“As soon as you build this big building people think that the big bands are going to just start coming.,” said Ireland. “If you build it, they’ll come. That’s sort of everyone’s mentality here and people are commenting saying, why don’t you have this big artist?”
To address the questions, she put together a story called “What Does it Take to put on a Rock Show?” in which she told people it’s not as easy as it looks and that there are a lot of different factors involved.
“We wanted to make sure people understood and educated them a little bit about who SMG was and our background and credentials and gave them a look into what it actually takes to put on a show,” said Ireland. “You know, artists have to be on tour, it has to financially make sense for the city and whatnot.”
As far as programming goes, Jason Aldean is set to play in October along with a number of different Canadian artists, and they’re already booking into 2017, with a Cirque du Soleil date on the books.
“We’re smaller markets so we’re going to a have to be cautious and not overextend ourselves,” said Jelinski. “But with my relationships, the plan is to reach for as big as we can get. We know already classic rock, country and family events are what people want; we’ll make sure to give them as much as they can support. As for new areas, we plan to introduce trade shows, corporate/private events and just good old cabaret-style events.”
Canalta signed on as the naming rights partner in June with a 20-year deal. Canalta develops and operates hotels and restaurants throughout Western Canada and, in addition to the naming rights, Canalta will also be advertising and promoting their Boston Pizza, Hampton Inn and Home 2 Suites, by Hilton brands, which will all have locations in the Box Springs Business Park, near the Canalta Centre. Boston Pizza will also be the exclusive pizza sold at the center.
“Why it’s a great partnership is they were invested in this community even before we were built,” said Ireland. They started developing hotels and things because they knew as soon as that event center was built, people would be needing hotels, because there’s just literally nothing on this side of town. They built a Boston Pizza and a hotel and started trying to develop that side of Medicine Hat. They’re invested in this community just as much as we are to bring new people to this city.”
Club seats are about halfway sold, and all suites and loge boxes sold out more than a year before Canalta Centre actually opened.
“People were really excited about this unique experience that was only available in larger cities, so they jumped all over that,” said Ireland. “We have everyone from car companies to a bunch of friends that pitched in to share the tickets.”
In addition to the giant score clock, another signature feature will be a brick mural on the main concourse. A city-run fundraising initiative offered people the chance to donate to the new building by buying $100 bricks or $250 seat plaques, which will be incorporated into the building.
As a Medicine Hat native, Ireland said she’s excited to share her passion for the entertainment industry and this new building with the community. Because it’s so new, a lot of her job right now is answering questions, giving tours and educating on new policies. But she hopes the passion is contagious.
“If you can build that excitement, I think that’s half the battle,” said Ireland.
Interviewed for this story: Kelli Ireland, (403) 905-0057; Peter Jelinski, (403) 977-5632