Both the number of entrants in the Canada Day parade and the size of the crowd that attended activities in the park that day rose substantially over last year's figures, according to Heather Dixon, the town's community facilitator.
Dixon acted as liaison with organizing committees for those events.
She says the second annual Canada Day parade attracted about 50 floats this year, up by about 10 from last year.
Dixon says it's difficult to nail down a precise figure on how many people attended activities in the park after the parade, but she estimates it was up about 20 per cent over last year.
"Obviously we don't have the exact numbers of people in the park, but just based on popcorn that was given out and the hotdogs that were given out and the cupcakes and how quickly they went as well, gave us a pretty good indication that the event is growing," Dixon says.
Unfortunately, those activities were cut short when rain pelted the community.
"We were keeping our eye on it (the weather) actually," Dixon says. "We kept looking at the map and trying to kind of gauge if we were going to get hit or not. So it's just one of those things, you know; you can't plan around Mother Nature."
She says organizers made a concerted effort to increase the number of parade entrants.
"This year we did a lot of connecting with commercial groups within our community and encouraged them to put something into the parade, so that was really great. A lot of community involvement."
Dixon says a goal in the future would be to have music in the parade, perhaps marching bands. But she says that's easier said than done.
"It is very hard. It's extremely difficult to find marching bands, but the group is really working hard on that," Dixon says. "There's not many around anymore."
She says the ones that do exist tend to have long-standing agreements to appear in parades in other communities. That makes it frustrating for Olds parade organizers.
"But it's not going to deter them. They're a pretty great group, so they're looking," she says.
Dixon was asked if the committee could solve that problem by moving the parade from Canada Day to another date -- perhaps coinciding with the start of the recently revived rodeo, now known as Oldstoberfest, a rodeo with a Bavarian theme.
"Well, it was a decision that the committee of community people made to do the parade on Canada Day. And it was such a success last year that they decided to continue. Because originally, it was only supposed to be for Canada 150," Dixon said.
"So I would say that, no, I don't think that that's a problem. I mean, for the second year, in having well over 50 float registrants is pretty great, so I think we're fine.
"I actually think we may see more and more registrants for the parade as we move along and it builds some momentum. And when Canada Day doesn't fall on the weekend we might even see more then," she added.
Dixon says Canada Day parade and activities organizers will meet shortly to discuss how things went and what improvements or changes need to be made -- if any.
