I grew up in a small reservation in Northwest Saskatchewan called Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nations on Treaty 6 Territory. I grew up with Aunties and Uncles and got introduced to Powwow from my late Uncle Roy Mitsuing.
I remember I use to watch my brother Nathan Mitsuing dance the grass dance and just be mesmerized by his dancing. It was like I got lost in the song and thought it was the coolest thing I’ve ever watched.
When I watched the men’s fancy war dance for the first time, it was like time slowed down and I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
As years passed and I became a man, I grew into becoming a champion Powwow dancer. This dance has taken me places that I never thought I would go. I got to experience trips, events, and all kinds of things from my dancing. I felt like I owed a lot to the world of Powwow and that’s when I got the idea to host a Powwow.
Every year at the end of the year, my family and I will get together on New Years and write out our goals for the year and do a show and tell to the family.
In 2018 is when I first wrote the goal to host a Powwow.
It didn’t happen in 2018, and in 2019 I wrote the goal again to host a powwow.
Then in 2020.
Still I didn’t get to the goal and dream of hosting our own Powwow.
As we got into 2021 we were working with the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery and just finished up our Museum Exhibit that showcased Powwow and the stories called Ochiwin.
To celebrate we wanted to do a small Powwow demonstration. The talks about doing the Powwow demonstration turned into talks about doing a Powwow.
I really didn’t know at the time how to even do a Powwow. So I started to reach out to people who did know. There were two people who were really vital to helping me. My pops Derek Rope who taught me how to do sponsorship packages and Lisa Meeches who runs the Manito Ahbee festival.
Lisa taught me the ins and outs of Powwow and what I needed to have in place to make sure my event was successful.
This was a crazy time for me because I was so nervous to even do a Powwow.
I decided to host it in Red Deer, Alberta and put out a poster.
I applied for some grants and started shopping around for sponsors with our sponsorship package.
I committed that if I was going to do this, that I would do 4 years.
The big road block we had was that Red Deer had a powwow about 20 years back and during its last day, the powwow didn’t have funds to pay people and everyone was left without getting paid.
This thought was still on the Powwow peoples minds.
Some rumblings were going around that we wouldn’t have funds as well.
A week leading up to the Powwow I had zero dollars in the bank with the poster out and everything booked.
I was nervous to say the least. Then as I checked the mail, I started seeing cheques in the mail every single day and by Friday I had all that I needed in the bank. It was around $140,000 to host the first annual Powwow.
For the first annual Powwow we had just under 300 dancers.
I was able to do one age category for adults and introduce a new format for Powwow. Its where on the Saturday afternoon we excused our adult dancers from needing to participate in the afternoon grand entry and highlight our Youth and Elders. Then in the evening have just our Adults for our evening grand entry.
Then Sunday we just have to do adults as well and finish up early for Sunday.
I believe people enjoyed our 1st annual Powwow.
When I do something that gets me excited, I tend to start thinking bigger and maybe a bit unrealistic.
So I decided I needed to move the 2nd annual Powwow Times Powwow to the BIG arena in Red Deer. This arena sits 8,000+ people in the arena and I felt like it was time.
Truthfully I probably needed to wait and grow the Powwow to get into that arena.
Well we hosted the 2nd annual powwow in the Big arena and had our Powwow go from just under 300 dancers to 500 dancers.
That was a descent growth from 1st to 2nd Powwow.
The Powwow was amazing. We got into the big arena and had 500 dancers.
But as you look you will see there is a lot of empty seats in the crowd. The crowd was mainly dancers. The cost to be in this big arena was very costly and the budget was $250,000 to be in this arena.
We had to charge at the door to offset the cost to be in this beautiful facility but only got to $200,000 and walking out of the 2nd annual Powwow I owed $50,000.
I worked all year to pay this balance off.
The big reason for this mishap was not knowing the full extent of being in a big arena like this and all the hidden costs that may be involved. It was a huge learning curve for me.
As we got into the 3rd annual Powwow, I was more prepared.
The 3rd International Powwow was pretty hype. We went from 500 dancers to over 800 dancers. The growth we experienced over the 3 years was amazing.
There was more people in the crowd this time and it looked like we should be fine this year in terms of budgets.
Well turns out a lot of people found ways to get into the Powwow without paying and with the amount of people that came, we should of easily pay for the venue, but instead it was not.
The cost for the 3rd annual Powwow was $250,000 again but we ended up with $240,000 and I owed $10,000 after the Powwow was done.
This was a win for me. I payed off the $10,000 and we were good.
Now we are on the 4th annual Powwow.
We are on a growth curve.
So Why move the Powwow to a smaller town and to a smaller venue?
Well click here to continue reading the story…..
