Craven, mainly being known for hosting Country Thunder, is also a small village of around 250 residents with multiple businesses and a tight-knit community.
“If people say Craven, people immediately think of the country music festival and probably not so much a little village,” said Dayna Anderson, mayor of Craven. “We’re kind of portrayed as like the backwoods hillbilly and truthfully I’m sure some people are offended, but we have a great time with that. We think that’s hilarious.”
“It’s that sense of community that we have,” said Anderson. “We put on regular events in town that kind of bring everybody together and not to mention its beautiful scenery.”
During Country Thunder they can gain anything from 20,000 to 30,000 coming to see the festival.
It is four-day festival that hosts several concerts in North America that mainly play country music but will play some rock, pop and folk music.
“This year our concern has primarily been about the safety of residents who attend because unfortunately residents are sort of forced to walk around the unlit highway usually in the dark,” said Anderson. “So we collaborated with CP rail police as well as the RCMP to work toward making sure that people are safe.”
With the influx of people coming to Craven it would seem like an opportunity for the village’s businesses, but with the way the grounds are situated it doesn’t give people easy access to the village.
“From speaking to our business owners they don’t generally see a drastic increase or a drastic drop in business over the course of the Country Thunder weekend,” said Anderson. “I think a lot of people would probably like to see more money coming into the village itself for the fact that there’s like 20,000 extra people coming in, but the physical location and the logistics does make it difficult.”
Even for Regina distance is potential issue for financial gain when working at Craven but it does have some benefits and opportunities for learning experiences.
“As far as financial It’s tough because there’s not huge profits, there as labor increases, hours are harder, expenses of fuel and all of those others,” said Heather Lutes, administration and customer success manager at Prairieland Rental and Sales. “Because even though we have a bunch of our own equipment, we still have to bring in from outside sources.”
Prairieland Rental and Sales set up tents, chairs and tables for the event and have been working with Craven for around 20 years.
With the location of Country Thunder it makes business slightly difficult, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be an increase for some businesses.
“Our bar, the Craven Motor Inn supply all of the liquor for the festival. So in that sense, one of our businesses is getting business generated by the festival,” said Anderson. “Then the village, we make a little bit of money by providing some potable water but we don’t provide water for the whole ground.”
Prairieland might have to spend more money for gas and equipment but there is a couple of benefits from working Country Thunder.
“The gain would be the notoriety of being one of the main tent suppliers out there,” said Lutes. “It is a really good experience because we usually hire university students or kids going into universities, so they make good money, fast money and hard money, but they learn to work.”
