1999 Brier
SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Curling
1999 BRIER
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Y'all come back in 2005, hear?
And it says here, as a result, you can bet your bottom Hec Gervais Brier Patch beer token that it will be back here in 2005 to help celebrate Alberta's 100th birthday.
With 11,105 fans in the stands for the seventh draw, the Last Shootout of The Century officially passed Calgary's 1997 numbers on total tickets sold.
"We broke the record of 223,322 on the afternoon draw,'' said Brier chairman Terry Morris. "The new Brier attendance record is 223,863 and growing.''
The total includes pre-sales plus walk-ups to this point.
"We still think we can hit 250,000,'' said Morris of the magic marker of a quarter-million fans.
"But today is a great day. Beating Calgary in these parts is beating Calgary. That's the extent of the competition between these cities.''
Warren Hansen says they've beaten every Brier ever held every which way.
"If it keeps going the way it has gone, it will be the most successful Brier we've ever run in all categories,'' says Hansen, who basically is to the Brier what Gary Bettman is to hockey.
"We've never had 10,000 for the opening draw or 10,000 on the first evening. We've never had 11,000 on Monday afternoon before. The numbers at the Brier Patch are very good. And the numbers on merchandising are at peak levels.
"The organization of this event is second to none. This Brier is exceptionally well put together, as good as we've done it.''
Edmonton, in 1954, established a Brier attendance record of 30,000. They did that on three draws here.
The last Brier held here, in 1987 in the AgriCom, drew 97,684.
"We'll be coming back sooner rather than later,'' said Hansen.
Next year's Brier is in Saskatoon. Betting is 2001 will be in Ottawa, 2002 in Calgary and 2003 in Halifax. Something like that. But 2005 is a perfect fit for the time to come back here.
"I think that would be a pretty good bet,'' admits Hansen.
With Calgary's 223,322 attendance two years ago and Edmonton's record this year, Hansen doesn't know how high it could go.
He commissioned an extensive survey which is being taken at this event which, so far, has been most positive. But they know where the work must be done.
Only 36 per cent of those questioned so far fit in the 25-45 age group. Most of the rest are older.
"We've got to get the age down,'' he says.
"We're working hard to use the Brier Patch to do that.''
This Brier Patch is going great.
They sold 6,800 drink tokens Friday, 23,000 Saturday, 13,100 Sunday and were projecting 14,000 for last night with Prairie Oyster the big band.
"Our numbers were higher than Winnipeg's from last year on the weekend and Mondays at the Brier are generally very slow. But we were amazed with how well we were doing all day. After the morning draw there were so many people here we had to add more bartenders, waiting staff and security,'' said Brier Patch boss Ken McRae.
That doesn't mean they've sold 56,000 beer, exactly. A lot of people are paying the $3.50 for the tokens and not using them. The tokens, with Gervais' likeness on three different coins, plus the names of the competing rinks on different coins, have become collectors' items.
Hansen says with every big Brier they are learning lessons to make them bigger and better.
For one thing, he says, they have to make the opening ceremonies more of a show, keeping the traditional part which makes the curlers' eyes wet while doing a lot more to make it the kind of a show which can open the event with a sellout.
The idea is to make it a Friday night event incorporating some of the entertainment from the Brier Patch into the show, adding indoor fireworks and a lot more Games-like pageantry.
Hansen also predicts that by the time the Brier returns to town the emphasis will be much greater on the Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday conclusion of the event.
The marketing push would be to sell it backwards, to try to sell out each of the last four days and create a tough ticket from back to front.
That's the one thing that didn't happen here.
"If there was one criticism I have of anything they did was that they put the final weekend packages on sale too late,'' said Hansen.
Calgary managed 17,000 for the final two years ago but that included a Labatt buy of about 3,000 tickets to fill the place.
There's no plan to do something like that here.
Right now there are 11,633 tickets sold for Saturday's semifinal and 12,010 tickets for the final.
Skyreach Centre capacity for curling is 16,000.