Holding arena-sized events in Quesnel during the ice sports season is impossible. From the first puck-drop in fall to the final buzzer in spring, and all the toe-picks and free passes in between, there is no way to crank up a concert or roll in a trade show.
There has only been speculative public conversation about conventions, concerts, trade shows, pedestrian sports, etc. coexisting with hockey, ringette and figure skating during the skate season. Floors for ice sheets exist, but Quesnel doesn’t have one.
How, then, one might ask, did the opening ceremonies of the Lhtako Quesnel BC Winter Games happen in West Fraser Centre when the event’s ringette tournament and the Quesnel Kangaroos playoffs take place there the very same weekend?
A floor was borrowed. It came from Vernon, a city with two floors for their adjoining Kal Tire Centre arena duplex.
“For events that require a dry floor during the ice season (concerts, trade shows, ceremonies), Vernon Recreation Services uses EventDeck Ice temporary flooring that can be put on top of the ice to convert to a dry floor and allow for these events to occur,” said City of Vernon spokesperson Josh Winquist. “Between the two rinks there are about 10 events annually that require this conversion. It requires a lot of work to install and remove, requiring the use of a forklift.”
Quesnel staff learned firsthand and under time pressure the work involved with the inlay and out-flow of the interlocking tiles. There are a number of companies making a variety of versions. Glen Mikkelsen, the entertainment manager at CN Centre in Prince George, said their venue has used a couple of kinds.
“Our venue is in the business of needing the ice covered regularly,” he said. “For our venue, a proper Arenadeck floor system was a game changer, as we previously used 4x8 homasote panels for the floor. We bought the Arenadeck flooring around 2008, and except for needing to replace about 20 panels, it has been remarkably durable.”
The City of Quesnel looked into the cost of the ice flooring, and also added up another cost specific to this area. While CN Centre can store its floor tiles in-house, neither West Fraser Centre nor Arena 2 have the space.
Furthermore, Quesnel is not a place that would use such flooring as much as busy Prince George would. However, storing the panels in a dedicated semi-trailer would allow for convenient keeping of the material and also allow for transport of the flooring to other arenas in the region. Vernon was helpful to Quesnel; Quesnel could be helpful Cariboo-wide.
The total all-in price was estimated at about $275,000 in 2022 when a grant application was made by the North Cariboo Joint Advisory Committee (elected officials from City of Quesnel and Cariboo Regional District) to offset those costs.
“The flooring would allow concerts and other dry floor events to be hosted in the winter when ice is in the arenas with the expectation that events held at this time of year would be better attended, resulting in higher ticket sales than during the summer when many people are on vacation,” said Jeff Norburn, the director of community services for the City of Quesnel in a report on the unsuccessful grant application.
He balanced that by saying the benefits would be tempered by lost ice rental during any hypothetical event, plus the cost of installing and removing the flooring each time.
Not easily calculated are the social benefits of a city that can host a variety of different events - events that might add public benefits of other kinds - and the economic value of drawing new and/or differently spent money into local pockets.
Mikkelsen clarified that each arena involved in sharing the system would likely need a few custom cut tiles because no two rinks are exactly the same shape, but that amount of tiling could more easily be stored on location or simply boxed up with the rink’s name on those pieces.
He also said each rink would need access to a forklift, whenever the tiles were in use, because it’s not simply a human effort to move them around. Transportation costs would also have to be factored into the movement of the trailer. However these are costs that can be calculated into the revenue plan for each event.
There would be more options for such events, if a floor system were available. Right now, the city and the region are on the ground floor of the possibilities.
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