‘I think it’s Canada at its finest’: Stampede wraps up blockbuster 2025 event

Overcrowding concerns, stabbings and an animal death among the challenges at this year's Stampede. Jordan Kanygin reports.

If the Calgary Stampede was a baseball player, it would probably be Shohei Otani: all anyone wants to talk about is whether this year will break the record they set last year.

Sunday morning, Stampede Chief Executive Officer Joel Cowley met the press and ran through a few numbers as he gave a post-mortem on the massive festival that was expected to draw upwards of 1.5 million visitors in 2025.

“I’ll hit the first thing that’s most on your minds right up front,” Cowley said. “Are we going to break the attendance record? We very well may and we very well may not. It’s that close to last year’s attendance.”

Saturday’s attendance was 150, 974, bringing the total for the 2025 festival to 1,384,584, around 130,000 short of setting the record with Sunday’s numbers still to come.

Big crowds, big challenges

Of course, the massive turnout in 2025 has produced its own set of challenges, most notably on Tuesday night, when three people were stabbed and a concert at the Coca-Cola Stage was packed on the hottest night of Stampede on a day that drew 193,000 visitors to the grounds.

“Bringing 1.4 million plus people to a common location over 10 days, is not without its challenges,” Cowley said, “and as you’re all aware, we had an assault in the park on Tuesday night.”

Targeted attack

Cowley said police are still gathering video of the stabbing and have not made any arrests partly because the victims won’t talk.

“Apparently, the victims are not cooperating with regard to identifying who the assailants were, because these were known parties,” he said. “This was a targeted altercation. That’s incredibly disheartening for an event like ours that is supposed to be a celebration that someone would come on grounds and look to do harm to others.”

He said investigation was continuing into how the weapon managed to make its way onto the grounds.

“Did it come through our security? Was it acquired on grounds? It’s really hard to make any adjustments, but I will tell you that our security protocols are evaluated daily,” he said.

Safe and secure

“Working with our security team, our providers in Calgary Police Service, we also know that going into 2026 one of our focal points will be continuing to evolve The Coke Stage -- because we want our guests there to be comfortable and feel safe and secure,” Cowley said.

“We had two very large, high volume nights this last week, and we know that some of our guests did not feel comfortable,” so we will continue to evaluate that that is at the very, very top of our list, and continue to evolve The Coke Stage presentation, whether that involve additional crowd control measures or evaluating which artists are placed on the Coke Stage."

He said efforts are already underway to make the crowded Coke Stage feel safer for guests.

“We set up an alternate viewing area in South Park, so just east of the dog bowl, there’s a covered pavilion there,” Cowley said. “And we put in a video screen, we put in a high quality sound system, and we had cold beverages there, where people could go there and watch if they weren’t comfortable standing in the crowd and actually sit on the grass and watch.

“My understanding is that wasn’t heavily used,” he added. “The crowds that were going to the Coke Stage wanted to be there present at the Coke Stage.

“But drawing that number of people when we’re really not sure how many are coming for a particular concert, that’s really what we have to focus on, ”he said, “whether that includes some additional barriers that that partition the crowd off so that they can’t just freely crowd toward the front of the stage.

“And I actually have some of our team traveling to another event probably next week to see what they do with crowds -- but we also have to evaluate which artists we place on that stage, because we know these high demand artists, those that draw a younger crowd, tend to be a little less really than, say, a classic rock band that goes there.”

Visitors from away

Cowley also broke down the demographics of Stampede, which are around 73 per cent local and 27 per cent visitors from out of town.

He said Stampede 2025 drew quite a few Canadians who were looking for a quintessentially Canadian experience this year.

“Those are people who are coming here, who are booking hotel rooms. They’re people who are coming here to eat in restaurants, and that’s what generates economic impact, because that money is coming to Calgary that would not otherwise come to Calgary, if it weren’t for the Calgary Stampede,” he said.

 “Last year, nine per cent were from Alberta, but not Calgary, (while) 10 per cent were from Canada, but not Alberta.

“The remaining eight per cent were international. three per cent of those being U.S., and five per cent ”other.“

He said Stampede 2025 drew quite a few Canadians who were looking for a quintessentially Canadian experience this year.

“It looks like Canadians were looking for a true Canadian experience in coming to the Calgary Stampede.”

His favourite comment, he said, came from the Irish ambassador when he asked what he thought of the Calgary Stampede.

“His response was, ‘I think it’s Canada at its finest,’” Cowley said.

With files from CTV’s Jordan Kanygin