By Robert Mackenzie
Published May 30 2017
Haliburton’s Home and Cottage Show one of the biggest in the province is returning to the county for the 39th year this June 2 weekend.
Rick Ashall says the show is a great chance for locals and cottagers to see a wide array of exhibits. “It’s an excellent opportunity to be able to see in one weekend 150 vendors” said Ashall who’s running the show for the second straight year. “You can spend a lot of mileage and a lot of time travelling a large county like Haliburton to see that.”
Haliburton’s show is unique not only for its size but also for all of the local volunteers who lend a hand in organizing. Ashall says the show will have more than 100 volunteers mainly from the curling club.
Those volunteers help create a show that focuses on the community’s interest. “A lot of shows are run by what I call professional show managers” Ashall said. “What that means is yeah they work to get vendors in but they’re not familiar with the community.”
Ashall estimates that between 70 to 80 per cent of the roughly 3000 attendees the show sees each year come from Haliburton and the surrounding area. Ashall and his team started reaching out to vendors in November and he estimates that he’s spoken with close to 300 vendors in that time.
Most of the show’s 150 vendors will be inside A.J. LaRue Arena and the Haliburton curling club although Ashall says about 15 vendors will be outside.
The show runs from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Parking is free and admission is three dollars for adults and free for children