The party tents are up, straw bales are scattered around sidewalks and the most crucial 10 days of the year are in full swing for one Calgary bar and restaurant operator.
The Calgary Stampede is a yearly celebration of western culture that kicks off Friday with a parade and includes rodeo events, concerts, carnival games, midway rides, neighbourhood pancake breakfasts, corporate shindigs and a whole lot of cowboy cosplay.
As part of the festivities, Concorde Entertainment Group has transformed two parking lots into rollicking party destinations — the Wildhorse Saloon tent in the downtown core and the NTNL Saloon in the nearby Beltline neighbourhood. The company also hosts corporate Stampede events and out-of-towners at Barbarella, Brigitte Bar, Major Tom and other popular food-and-drink spots it runs.
"Without question, Stampede is the biggest 10 days of the year for us," said Jon Molyneux, Concorde's vice-president of business development, sales and events.
This year is gearing up to be a big one, he said.
It took a while after the COVID-19 pandemic for parties to regain their momentum and companies that had put their festivities on hold are coming back, Molyneux said.
Corporate bookings have never been so high, Molyneux said, adding the staff orientation session earlier this week at the Wildhorse Saloon was the fullest he's seen.
"There's a great energy in the city right now and I think this one's going to be a banger."
A report from the Mastercard Economic Institute suggests that last year, Stampede represented a 158 per cent increase in overall dining spending and an 18 per cent increase in accommodation spending compared to estimates of what it would have been without the event. It came up with those figures using a machine-learning methodology known as "synthetic control" to create a comparison scenario with no Stampede.
Stampede organizers say the fair and rodeo grounds just southeast of downtown hosted nearly 1.5 million visitors last year, an all-time attendance record.
That was despite a catastrophic water main break a month earlier that forced everyone in the city to cut back on lawn watering, showering, toilet flushing and car washing. In the end, repairs were made in the nick of time and none of the festivities had to be scaled back or scrubbed.
The Stampede, a not-for-profit organization, estimates it contributes $540 million to the Alberta economy year-round.
"It's significant enough to move the needle a little bit," said BMO economist Robert Kavcic.
This year's Stampede comes at a time of optimism in Alberta, he said.
"We're still looking at pretty solid economic growth this year — let's call it two per cent or slightly stronger — even as other parts of Canada struggle a bit more."
Alberta's oil-and-gas-centred economy has been relatively sheltered from US President Donald Trump's tariffs, unlike the manufacturing heartland of Central Canada, Kavcic said.
The province's economic fortunes are also being bolstered by the recent startup of LNG Canada, the first major project to enable natural gas exports to lucrative Asian markets.
Though Canadians' spending in general may be crimped this year, more of the discretionary dollars they do have are likely to be spent within the country as they avoid US travel, Kavcic said.
ATB chief economist Mark Parsons agreed there will likely be a bump in domestic tourism this year, noting there's a surge in arriving guests at the city's airport every year at Stampede.
"We see an uptick in spending, and, in particular, the real impact comes from the out-of-province guests," he said.
This year, that might be even more pronounced as Trumps' tariff and annexation threats, along with general concerns about the US political climate, turn Canadians off vacationing south of the border.
"We do expect more staycations this summer, more of that 'elbows-up' tourism, which I think will actually boost the Stampede numbers and maybe encourage longer stays at the Stampede," Parsons said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2025.
Comments
I am very disappointed that a progressive news outlet like Canada's National Observer would carry a Canadian Press article about the Calgary Stampede without including information about the unnecessary cruelty and animal deaths that occur each year at the Stampede. I invite your readers to check out the 'Animal Justice' website (https://animaljustice.ca/blog/calgary-stampede-rodeo-a-tradition-of-tor…) to learn more about this barbaric 'entertainment' event. Since 1986, over 100 cattle and horses were killed during Stampede events, with 6 horses being killed in chuckwagon races in 2019 alone. Under Albertan and Canadian law, it’s illegal to inflict distress and suffering onto animals—and that includes for entertainment. For years, Animal Justice has been calling on the Calgary Humane Society (CHS) to investigate and prosecute illegal rodeo cruelty at the Stampede, yet the CHS has failed to lay any cruelty charges. We are now living in the 21st century and a truly civilized nation/province should not allow this cruel form of exploitation for the entertainment of the unthinking masses to go on.
Growing up in Calgary in the '60s meant the Stampede and it's annual kickoff parade was a highlight. Having Bobby Kennedy leading one parade in an open convertable and waving directly to us kids sitting on an elevated awning over a store entry, complete with his photogenic toothy grin, was unforgettable.
A few weeks later he was assasinated, which etched the images deeper into my memory.
By about age 12 the Stampede was wearing old, and by 14 I became more interested in being a rocker just when Eric Clapton and the Cream came to town as relative unknowns on their first world tour.
A decade later I moved to Vancouver and have felt more at home. Whenever I visited family during Stampede over the next 45 years I saw it increasingly as a silly event, petroleum executuves and working class mechanics and clerks alike dressing up as fake cowboys and cowgirls. It's basically an excuse to party and listen to terrible music.
Another indelible memory is the smell of sour gas enveloping the suburbs and the sound of the Western Canada Concept Party officials whining and complaining on a.m.radio about the feds with the same tone as pulput pounding prairie preachers. That has never stopped.
In my view, oil and gas have had a long life, much, much too long. They now have very serious problems they have no intention to address. The longer they try to hang on, the harder will be their fall. And the saddest part is that they will drag an entire province down with them.
China, of all nations, is now in the lead in replacing fossil fuels with renewable electricity and is making a direct effort to take its massive industrial effort in solar, wind, EVs and batteries to the developing world as a long term strategy while the US is turning back to last century's carbon.
Alberta will be left in a state of decline, or at least with a stagnant oil market while it clings to the
US domestic market for heavy oil.
Most of Alberta's oil patch companies are US owned. So, what does all that mean to those who profess a concern for Alberta's future?