Laketown Ranch is a family affair. From left, son Tanner Adams, Judy Adams, country star Blake Shelton, Greg Adams, Cody Adams, and daughters-in-law Alexa and Kayla. Missing from photo is Chance Adams
By Mark MacDonald, Business Examiner
LAKE COWICHAN – Greg Adams loves a challenge.
As a former National Hockey League player, the Duncan native thrives on it, and he’s poured all of that energy, plus some, into the creation of Laketown Ranch in Youbou, which has become the epi-centre of big-name entertainment and concerts on Vancouver Island.
Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Alan Jackson, Snoop Dog, Randy Bachmann and this summer, Nickelback (August 9), have all taken turns gracing the stage at events that can draw as many as 45,000 country and rock and roll enthusiasts to Laketown Ranch on a weekend.
Adams planned and thought long and hard about the project before starting. When fully built-out, the concert area will hold 15,000 for a one day concert, and will include 1,350 camp sites, 120 fully serviced recreational vehicle pads, and 185 one-room park model homes. Finishing off Laketown Ranch will take another estimated five to seven years.
Laketown Ranch also host cultural and arts festivals and weddings on the site, and it is also a major seasonal employer. It takes 500 people to put on a major event: 350 contractors and 150 volunteers.
It’s the latest venture for Adams, who has had a long and successful business career in the Cowichan Valley.
Judy and Greg Adams on a biking adventure in Germany
Greca Construction Management Ltd. is Adams’ development arm that he operates with development and project manager Mark Mitchell. Their latest completed project is a 39 town-home development in Duncan called Ivan’s Hill, and they’re also working on a 15-lot development on Maple Bay Road.
Adams’ youngest son, Chance, is the Business Manager for the family’s five Tim Horton’s franchises (four in Duncan and one in Lake Cowichan. Adams also owned, coached and supported the BC Hockey League’s Cowichan Valley Capitals for many years, part labour of love and part giving back to the sport and community that helped him get his start in the game that he played professionally for 10 years, including 545 games in the NHL.
What did he learn in his hockey career that helped him in business?
“Work ethic and discipline,” he notes. “I learned that through sports, where I was able to gather knowledge from mentors and older, wonderful people who shared what they knew with me. People like Pat Quinn, Paul House, Paul Haageson of Live Nation, Larry Lund of Okanagan Hockey School, Peter Baljet and many more.”
Adams’ concert dream started after a family vacation to Florida, when he and his wife Judy went to Disney World and took in a concert in a park featuring Three Dog Night, along with a Wine and Rib Fest.
“We really enjoyed the show, and I looked at Judy and asked, ‘Why don’t we have that here?’”
Adams then got on the phone with former NHL executive Brian Burke, who connected him to talent mogul Bruce Allen, who managed singer Bryan Adams, and Allen put him in touch with the Feldman Agency, who helped him get in touch with top talent throughout North America.
Thus SunFest was born, and from 2001-2003, they held events in three consecutive years. The first event was budgeted for $50,000 and attracted about 900 people to hear 54/40.
The names kept getting bigger, and the event’s popularity made a move to Avalon Farm, then the Cowichan Exhibition Grounds, necessary.
When the crowds moved to 8-9,000 and the caravans to get the artists’ equipment into the Exhibition Grounds stretched two kilometres down Highway 19, it was time to move again, to a permanent location.
“We started looking around from Qualicum Beach to Victoria for a location that was central, but we needed 100 acres – or at least a minimum of 75 – to do what we wanted to do,” he explains. In 2015 he purchased the current Laketown Ranch lands in Youbou.
Adams has always enjoyed adventures and challenges with his family, climbing to 20,000 feet on Mt. Everest with son Cody and also running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, hiking to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro with Judy, going swimming with great white sharks with Tanner – protected by a cage, of course – and trekking to Alaska to the site of the Into the Wild survival movie with Chance.
Besides being a family venture in every sense of the word, Adams is blessed to have the likes of
COO Melissa Windsor and Festival Director Mike Hann on hand to help make everything go.
“I met my wife Judy at 17, and we’ve gone through all kinds of adventures together, and she has been a wonderful partner,” he says. “lt’s different for everyone involved in a family business, because it never turns off. So you have to learn how to do that. My wife doesn’t want to hear about the next country artist when the grandkids are opening their Christmas presents.”
Adams has also studied large-scale music-based events in towns like Merritt, Pemberton and Kelowna and many in the United States that have come and gone, to ensure long-term success at Laketown Ranch.
“Some people don’t know how to survive their success,” he observes. “If you lose the focus of peoples’ safety and comfort, you’re headed for trouble. You can learn a lot from watching others successes and failures.”
Adams has loved the challenge of playing in the NHL, operating Tim Horton’s franchises, and construction, but there’s something special about what is happening at Laketown Ranch.
“When I see a full house at a large, successful event, where everything is running as smooth as it can with thousands of people enjoying themselves, it’s very rewarding,” he says. “But it’s different than scoring a big goal, where it’s a physical and mental thing. When a whole show hits and it’s because you and your team has planned and really thought it out, there’s nothing like it. I love the challenge, and that’s why I do it.”
