Vendor stalls at the Vernon Home Show in 2022 (photo courtesy of B.C. Home Show Limited / Instagram)

By Liam Verster

130 Vendors

Vernon Home Show to be bigger than ever

Mar 21, 2024 | 6:00 AM

For the first time, the annual Vernon Home Show will take up both Kal Tire Place South and North.

“We have over 130 businesses signed up for the event, so both buildings, both the north arena and the south arena for the first time for the home show, are being used and both sides are full,” Jim Rice, show manager for B.C. Home Shows Limited, told Vernon Matters.

Rice said there are a lot more vendors taking part this year.

“Usually it’s around 80 [vendors], so we’re about 52 or 53 additional vendors because [we are] using the second side [arena].”

Along with the usual exhibits of builders, renovators, suppliers, and general interest businesses, there will be an artisanal market for the first time ever at the event.

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“So we’ll have artisans, wine tasting and beer tasting, these are local distillers and brewers who are participating under the umbrella of artisan and lifestyle,” Rice said.

“So there’s a specially designated area in the south arena for those folks.”

The ice at Kal Tire Place South was being put back in this week following a leak in the ice chiller, but Rice said he had spoken with the city and was assured that the home show could go ahead as planned.

The Home Show is free to attend, and Rice says it results in a large economic spinoff.

“Certainly, the amount of business that will be done from this event will be in the millions of dollars over the course of the summer,” Rice told Vernon Matters.

“You start to add up all the connections that people who come to the event make with suppliers, and then that materializes into putting a new roof on your home, putting a whole new renovation into your home, so it represents billions of dollars of economic activity that will result in the months that precede the event.”

This is the 25th year that B.C. Home Shows Limited has run its events, which are also held in Kelowna, Salmon Arm, Kamloops, and Merritt, though Rice noted this is only the 22nd event the group will have run in Vernon as it was previously organized by a different company.

To mark that milestone year, B.C. Home Shows is bringing back its Treasure Chest prize promotion at the event.

“There’s $3,500 in prizes to win, and all people have to do when they come to show is use their phone and their camera to scan the QR code and then fill in the application and they will be entered in to win one of the prizes,” Rice explained.

“Those QR codes are positioned all over the show in different parts of each arena, so it kind of makes people go on a bit of an adventure.”

As mentioned earlier the event is free to attend and parking at Kal Tire Place is free as well, and Rice hopes to see thousands of people attend and speak with the vendors.

The Vernon Home Show will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 23, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Mar. 24.