Whoop-Up Days 2025 welcomes nearly 55,000 people, sets modern-day attendance record

This year's Whoop-Up Days is being called a huge success, with a modern-day paid attendance record set.

A new modern-day paid attendance record was set at this year’s Whoop-Up Days.

The Lethbridge and District Exhibition (LDE) says 54,865 people came through the gates at this year’s festival—a 36 per cent increase over the previous record of 40,178 last year.

“Whoop-Up Days this year was outstanding,” said Paul Kingsmith, director of event development at LDE.

“The numbers that we’ve seen come in are through the roof. Seeing the increases in guests that we’ve had on both the Whoop-Up Days and the Lethbridge and District Pro Rodeo side is staggering.

“This community came through in a big way for Whoop-Up Days this year, so we’re super excited.”

The Lethbridge and District Pro Rodeo also set a new record of 9,075 people taking in the three days of pro rodeo and relay racing action—a 47 per cent increase from the previous record in 2024.

“The rodeo has become one of those events that people are talking about in the community, and they want to be a part of, and they want to be there, and they feel like they’re missing out if they’re not there,” said Kingsmith.

“We saw that big growth last year, and then this year it just went exponentially higher.”

He says headliner performances by Trooper and Chad Brownlee also contributed to the increase in fairgoers this year.

“The growth in our stage entertainment and people coming out for that is super exciting, and then it’s just continuing this trend that we’ve kind of seen over the last three years where people are re-engaged with this event,” said Kingsmith.

The spike in attendance is welcome news for the LDE, according to acting CEO Kim Gallucci.

He says last year’s event brought a net profit of roughly $260,000 to the organization, with this year’s final expenses still being calculated.

“You saw the increase in attendance, and we’re expecting a rise in revenue—generally around the 33 per cent mark—which will help us and the community overall,” said Gallucci.

With two straight years of record-breaking attendance, Gallucci says it shows that Whoop-Up Days is on the right track.

“It really gives us the confidence to expand and develop even more product within Whoop-Up Days and the days that we have,” he said.

Although this year’s new Whoop-Up Wrap-Up on Sunday, a pared-down version of the festival with only the midway, food trucks and beer gardens, brought in a little over a thousand people—lower than anticipated.

“It goes back to taking risks and pushing forward and trying new things, and we’re happy to do that,” said Kingsmith.

“We’ll look at how we marketed it, we’ll look at the feedback that we get from people who attended it, we’ll talk to our partners at West Coast Amusements and others as well and sort of evaluate if a Sunday is something we want to continue doing going forward.”

The LDE will now meet as an organization to evaluate this year’s festival to determine what worked and what areas might need improving.

Meanwhile, Kingsmith says planning for next year’s fair has already begun.

“If we put on a really good product, then we know the people will follow, and so we’ll take this as a good sign that we’re doing things right lately, but we want to keep pushing forward and make it bigger and better next year,” said Kingsmith.

“We want to make sure that people are going to continue to want to come out because it feels fresh and it feels different and it feels exciting each and every year, and so that’s our challenge as a group—to make sure that we do that.”

Whoop-Up Days 2026 is set to run Aug. 18-22.