Gowan earns prestigious Tourism Builder Award
Swift Current’s Shann Gowan has been selected as one of three recipients of a Tourism Builder Award in the Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence for 2018.
Gowan was selected in recognition of her efforts as the organizer of the annual Saskpower Windscape Kite Festival and the Long Day’s Night Music Festival.
In announcing the award recipients, Tourism Saskatchewan noted that the Tourism Builder Award recognizes individuals who have “made tourism an important part of their life’s work and have helped position Saskatchewan as a welcoming destination.”
“I’ve won lots of tourism awards before but this one’s kind of a big one so it’s very thrilling,” Gowan admitted in an interview after being announced as an award recipient.
The festival was launched in 2004 and this year’s event will celebrate 15 years of kite flying.
“It’s a really unique event. It’s not like other events. Everybody has a rodeo and a fair days, and everybody has folk festivals and stuff. And the Kite Festival was something that was really unique and it had an opportunity to be bigger than just a regional festival. It was a nice fit.”
Gowan reflected that the early years of the Kite Festival were rewarding but challenging.
“It was a difficult one to start, the first one with the Art Gallery and then the ones that we started off separately. It was hard to convince people to come to a kite festival because nobody had ever been to one. They had no idea what one was. They really didn’t know how to fly kites. They had no idea how big kites could be. So it was a hard thing to convince people to come to the first one. You just had to keep saying ‘you should just come. It’s really cooler than you think.’”
She noted that after local residents got behind the event, it continued to gain support, sponsorship dollars and volunteer help. She also continued to pursue her vision of not just making the festival and event for the Southwest.
“It kind of blossomed from there. But it takes a lot of people to put on a festival of that size each year. So it was not without a lot of help.”
“Everybody thinks a party just happens, and they don’t. And then everybody thinks they magically clean themselves, and they don’t. And up at that Kite Festival I always said it was like building a City that you only used for a week, and then you put it away and built it again the next year. And it gets bigger ever year.”
Gowan also organized the Long Day’s Night Music Festival in conjunction with the Kite Festival.
“That actually, I feel, is more regional. I’ve always said that the music stuff I did for us, for Swift Current itself.”
“There’s music festivals all over, and lots of them are better than the ones we put on. But the one we put on actually feeds our regional area, and it’s good timing and it works well with the kite festival. So it’s been good too.”
“And I’ve loved doing the music. I mean I’m not a kite flyer…but music has always been my passion. So it was exciting and a fun job to have for 16 years.”
She is also well aware of the tourism draw the Kite Festival has for the Southwest. And while the economic spin off is important, the unique aspect of the festival is more key to her.
“To have one that really speaks to who you kind of are. And it’s a timely one because its really appealing to newcomers. They have a lot more kite background in their cultures, and so we see a lot of newcomers at the festival. It is a great festival and its one that I hope lives forever because its perfect for Swift Current. And it has no where to go but up.”
Gowan, who stepped away from her organizing duties after the 2017 Festival, will receive her award at the 30th annual Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence Gala in Saskatoon on April 11.