OLDS — About 20 Olds College business management students are holding A Taste of Olds and Surrounding Areas April 3 at the Alumni Centre.
The event, open to the public, will run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Proceeds will go to Kirsten’s Place, the emergency shelter under construction in Olds.
Vendors from Olds and as far as Red Deer will offer different kinds of food as well as beer and mead for people to sample.
A couple of musicians; one from Olds and the other from Stettler, will provide entertainment during the evening.
It’s free to the public to attend, but in order to get food and/or drink they need to purchase tickets.
Brooklyn Demers-Gunn got the idea for the event during a project management class and is serving as its overall coordinator.
Other business management students involved in the project are working in the following areas: leadership, marketing and promotion, operations (actually staging the show), vendor and logistics coordination, safety and risk management, guest experience, engagement, and post-event management.
During an interview with the Albertan, Demers-Gunn said at the beginning of the semester, the class was tasked with coming up with an event to organize and stage.
Different ideas were suggested, but in the end, the class agreed with Demers-Gunn’s idea of a food and drink expo, similar to one held in Red Deer.
“I thought there's a lot of (restaurants) around here, like Cacio, e Pepe, those kind of things. They're just kind of niche to Olds,” she said.
“After I said it, everybody was like, ‘yeah, food and drink expo sounds pretty fun.’”
Initially, the show was going to be limited to showcasing purveyors of food and drink from Olds, but when organizers weren’t able to obtain enough local vendors, they extended the reach to outside the town.
Demers-Gunn is confident attendees will have a great time.
“We just wanted (people) to be able to go around, have a drink and then try some food; like, just a lively, fun event,” she said.
Demers-Gunn said the food available will range from say, burgers and fries as well as Fermented Fire hot sauce to the more exotic, like duck wings and pistachio cream pastry.
Demers-Gunn said one of the toughest aspects of organizing the event was nailing down the vendors who would be able to participate.
She said a big takeaway was how detailed it can be to organize an event like this; not only securing vendors and entertainment, but obtaining a liquor licence, plus satisfying Alberta Health Services (AHS) requirements.
“AHS wants each station that has food to just have pretty much a bucket with soapy water so they can wash their hands in it,” Demers-Gunn said.
“Other vendors can only need hand sanitizer, but they have to be a certain type and bring a certain type of food. So, yeah, just things like that.”
Despite the pressure of putting together such a big event in such a short time, Demers-Gunn said she’s actually enjoyed the experience.
“This has been, in my own personal experience, the funnest one of my courses so far; just how engaging it is,” she said.
“It's going to be so nice to see, this is what we put in, and this is our result. Like, we're going to get a physical result out of this.
“We've gotten some sponsorships too, so that's been nice too to help with the cover of some of the costs.”
Now that the event is almost about to occur, Demers-Gunn says she’s getting more and more excited.
“I'm getting a little nervous, just to make sure everything goes smoothly,” she said. “But I'm more excited than nervous, I think, I think. That's what I'm telling myself anyways.”
