Outdoor Farm Show owner sets sights on Saskatchewan

The owners of the biggest outdoor farm show in Canada have announced plans to put the business model to work northwest of Saskatoon.

Farm publishing house Glacier FarmMedia, owners of the Woodstock, Ont.-based Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show and this website, on Wednesday announced its chosen site and date for the inaugural edition of what it’s dubbed Ag in Motion: Western Canada’s Outdoor Farm Expo.

The company will host Ag in Motion on a 320-acre site near Langham, about 30 km outside Saskatoon off Highway 16, from July 21 to 23.

“The property was actually farmed last year so you can get a really good sense of what that equipment or what that variety of crop can do because it’s there in the setting you’re most familiar with, versus being inside a building or on a concrete pad,” show director Rob O’Connor told the Manitoba Co-operator in an interview.

“It won’t be hard to understand how that product will look in your field or on your farm.”

Glacier, on its Ag in Motion website, said farmers visiting the demonstration-focused event will see over 300 exhibitors showcasing their products and services in an “interactive” way.

“It’s one thing to buy new products for your farm after reading about them; it’s another to see them in action side-by-side,” the company said.

Noting Saskatoon’s central location, the company said its plan for Ag in Motion is to attract farmers from across Western Canada and the northern U.S. — ultimately in numbers similar to Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, which drew about 42,800 people in September.

O’Connor comes to the Ag in Motion event from managing Brandon’s Provincial Exhibition, where he had recently arrived after 10 years with Canada’s Farm Progress Show at Evraz Place in Regina.

Staff with Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show will also help organize Ag in Motion, he told the Co-operator.

Glacier, whose farm journals include the Co-operator as well as Country Guide, Grainews, the Western Producer, Canadian Cattlemen, Alberta Farmer and le Bulletin des Agriculteurs, came to the ag trade show business in 2011 when it bought Guelph-based Canada’s Outdoor Shows Ltd.

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, the Guelph company’s flagship event, was set up in 1994 by ag marketing and communications expert Ginty Jocius, who died in 2008. The 2015 edition of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show will run Sept. 15-17. — AGCanada.com Network