Half a year after opening, the Cenovus Energy Hub has hosted its first big ticket events. With a major concert on the horizon, city officials say it’s been smooth.
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The city is currently facing capacity issues with the facility’s parking lot. Large events, such as the recent powwow, have already pushed the Hub to its limit.
“Parking is a challenge,” said Don Bowey, manager of the Cenovus Energy Hub and City of Lloydminster arenas.
It’s not all hopeless when it comes to parking.
“I know we have more parking lot to build. We need to more parking lot, that’s for sure,” he said. “It was wild to see how filled it was for any Bobcats game. Especially on nights like the Powwow, it shows that we’ve been almost too successful in some ways.”
The Hub is expected to grow alongside the city’s entertainment district plan. Bowey says the city is seeking grants to fix the parking situation, though any construction requires council approval.
“It’s all dependant on council,” he said. “I know we’re doing our best to see if there’s any grants eligible or some other means of facilitating that.”
Other slated work for the area includes a new playground.
“Down the road, there are still plans to do ballparks out here, eventually,” said Bowey. “A playground is slated for this year for planning. That got approved because of some grants.”
Standing in the lobby of the Hub, Bowey pointed south toward dirt piles where future construction is expected to begin.
“The dirt you see here is likely going to be moved for other construction projects,” he said.
Settling into their new home, Bowey was all smiles talking about the work they’ve done and how they see the future of Lloydminster’s newest facility.
“It’s been extremely busy,” he said. “It’s one of the most fantastic things we’ve seen. Everybody assumes just hockey, but we do a lot of programming outside of hockey that people may not see.”
He says crews would start work to get the facility ready for a user group an hour before a booking and allocate themselves an hour afterward to clean up.
The staff who previously worked in the Centennial Civic Centre moved over to the Hub. Additional staff were also brought in to help.
“Staffing wise, (it’s) pretty similar because we moved everybody who was working over at the Civic over here and hired a couple of part-timers to help us,” said Bowey.
The city has had a kick at the can to host a number of events, including Sound Check, which let them test their space and sound when hosting a concert.
“Running a hockey arena is much different than running an event facility,” he said.
Of note, the city has had plenty of practice removing the glass the events.
“We’ve been getting practising. We’ve never taken the glass out this much and it’s a lot more work than you’d anticipate,” he said. “It’s a forklift and two staff to safety remove these very heavy pieces of glass.”
Bowey explained it takes about four hours per quarter of the arena.
The most recent powwow, hosted by Gold Horse Casino at the Hub, packed the building for three days.
“The powwow, specifically, was the biggest non-ice event we’ve had,” he said. “We were able to put things into place like our ice-cover system, which has worked phenomenally well.”
Rather than removing the ice, crews installed a friction-fit cover to transform the arena into a stable event floor.
“It’s a fibre glass cover that goes over the ice that’s friction fit, so a bunch of panels that fit together,” said Bowey, noting they did the same for Sound Check. “It takes us about two hours to install and two hours to uninstall. That transforms any arena into a useable surface for events.”
The future of events at the Hub continues to grow, as June will host a multitude of events.
“The future looks busy,” he said. “We have some large events coming up down the road. We have Josh Ross here June 12. Other than that, we have a few surprise fall events that are coming up, a potentially really big one in December.
“We have grad coming here from the LPSD in June. We’re also hosting the Heart of Treaty 6 powwow and a big lacrosse tournament (that month).”
The ice saw heavy use this season as teams played their first full schedule at the newly opened facility. The facility even hosted several large tournaments.
“To be able to host junior B provincials was huge,” he said. “Everything went off without a hitch. The problems we’ve encountered have been more small day-to-day problems.”
Even as early as 10 a.m. on a Monday, the surface was filled with kids learning how to skate for the first time with proud parents and families watching on.
Programs like CanSkate, figure skating, free skates and public shinny keep the ice filled throughout the season.
Bowey also explained they’ve been working through any post-construction issues.
“Our challenges have been more about working through some of those post-construction headaches, like configuring the building properly for ice temperatures,” he said.
For the summer season, he says they’ll be working with the Servus Sports Centre to ensure one of the arenas has summer ice, allowing facilities to do maintenance on their ice plants.
Concession lineups and efficiency is something they’ve been working through as well.
“The scaling issues are one of those things that I don’t think you really understand until you get in the facility,” said Bowey. “I remember the first night, it was a Bobcats game and a Lakeland game. There was 2,300 people in the building and it’s just for regular games.”
With the Josh Ross concert on the horizon, he says they’re exploring options to get people to the event.
“Running some parking ride solutions and working with our partners at the Gold Horse Casino to help alleviate that possibility and encouraging people to carpool for that event.”
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