Vernon Winter Carnival's Laurell Cornell, Lisa Fenyedi, Vicki Proulx, Jason Keis and Boris Ivonoff dressed as TV and movie characters at the Winter Carnival Media Night Wednesday (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Feb. 3-12

Countdown to Vernon Winter Carnival, final one for current executive director

Jan 12, 2023 | 5:00 AM

The 63rd annual Vernon Winter Carnival begins in 22 days, and it will be the last carnival under the executive director for the past six years.

The Winter Carnival Society held its Media Night Wednesday, Jan. 11 to promote the 10-day event that runs February 3-12.

Guests and organizers, some dressed for the Carnival TV theme, mingling at the Best Western hotel in Vernon for the Winter Carnival Media Night (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

“We are so excited for Vernon Winter Carnival 2023. We have a lot of returning events that people have missed over the last two years and tons of new stuff too,” Vicki Proulx, Carnival’s executive director told Vernon Matters.

“We have our Carnival One Mile, which is a new race that’s going to happen right before the parade. We have our Seniors Happy Day Sock Hop. Lots of stuff for all ages and everyone in our community to enjoy.”

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Vernon Winter Carnival Executive Director, Vicki Proulx, presenting the schedule for the 2023 Winter Carnival from the “Carnival TV News Desk” (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

Proulx said she has lots of events she is looking forward to, but is most excited for the first ever Winter Carnival concert.

“I am definitely looking forward to the Snowglobe Concert [featuring the Reklaws] at Kal Tire Place. It is something that we’re really excited about and it’s not just a concert. It is really an opening for us to be able to bring more live music into Vernon, so we’re really looking forward to being able to present that opportunity and hopefully it’s successful,” said Proulx.

The full schedule for the Winter Carnival is now available online, and physical copies can be picked up at their office at 3401 30th Ave.

The Carnival Parade also has a new route this year, which can be seen in the carnival’s brochure.

The theme for the 2023 Vernon Winter Carnival is “Carnival TV.”

“It really just means whatever you want it to as far as TV goes: it can be your favorite TV character, your favorite TV show, if you really like hockey you can come as a hockey player. Just anything you would see on TV and it doesn’t have to be classic TV, it can be new or modern stuff. I look forward to seeing all the Wednesday costumes that are out there,” Proulx said.

“We encourage people to adopt the theme whenever they can, especially with things like the parade and the best decorated contest, but really if you show up to any event in a costume, no one is going to judge that at all. We encourage it, highly.”

Winter Carnival organizers dressed for the Carnival TV theme at the Media Night event (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

It is Proulx’s final year as executive director of the Winter Carnival Society, and she said she is very happy to end her term with a post-pandemic restriction event.

“I am so excited! I have been with Vernon Winter Carnival for the last six years and the past two years, although we were able to do stuff, it wasn’t quite the same and you can really feel the excitement this year now that we are out of COVID for the most part and we can actually have these big gatherings and these parties again. Vernon Winter Carnival is very much about bringing the community together and we weren’t really able to do that the last two years so we are so excited to see so many people we haven’t seen in a while,” said Proulx.

“I am so excited to be able to see a lot of past carnival directors and chairmen who I haven’t seen in two years. That’s part of the fun of it is hearing all these stories and hearing people’s past experience of carnivals and that’s definitely been missing over the last two years so I’m looking forward to seeing people in person, being able to hang out with them without a mask on and really be able to bring people together.”

Proulx’s position will be taken over by Kris Fuller, who will also be out at many of the events this year, meeting people and overseeing operations.

Proulx said she is very happy to hand the torch to Fuller and is excited to see where she takes the Vernon Winter Carnival in the future.