Lambton IPM committee announced Friday it will not host the event

Heather Wright/The Independent

A representative of the Ontario Plowmen’s Association is still hopeful Brigden will host of the International Plowing Match in 2027.

In a news release today, the Lambton committee said it has withdrawn its offer to host the event which had the potential to draw upwards of 50,000 people to the Bridgen Fairgrounds.

Lambton won the right to host the event in April 2025.

Dennis Bryson, Committee Chair said in a news release after “careful consideration,” the commitee withdrew its offer to host.
“We were unable to successfully negotiate and finalize a hosting agreement that was mutually beneficial for all parties and have decided it is in everyone’s best interest to conclude those discussions and allow time for provincial event organizers to discuss alternative host sites outside of Lambton County.”

Doug Beatty, a volunteer with the local committee, did not want to get into specifics of the sticking points with the Ontario Plowmen’s Association.

“The Plowing Match is a massive undertaking. It’s a multimillion dollar undertaking. I’m just looking at the organizational chart – there are multiple committees – it is a multifaceted undertaking, and we just got in a situation where we were not able to get the necessary approvals and to move forward to get planned for a match in the next September,” Beatty tells The Independent.

The local organizing committee had recruited “hundreds of volunteers” he said, who had been working for the last year on the event.

“Everybody at the committee level of participating in this, we’re kind of nostalgic for plowing matches, because we remember the old days of the plowing match,” he added. “Certainly there has to be a need to pivot to newer and different things…it’s certainly different in 2026 to organize this kind of event … than it was in 1991.”

Anne Thompson, a zone director for the Ontario Plowmen’s Association, was surprised by the announcement. She was not prepared to say the Lambton county bid has fallen apart.

“There have been no discussions at our Ontario Plowmen’s Association (at the) board level about not hosting the match in Lambton in 2027,” Thompson tells The Independent.

The OPA received an email from the Lambton Chair, Dennis Bryson and the Lambton County Plowmen’s Association President Albert Tuinstra on the evening of June 30 saying Lambton would not host the event.
“We still remain committed to this partnership,” said Thompson.

“We were both just surprised and disappointed about that correspondence that we received.

“You need to have open communications with the parties, and those types of concerns haven’t come to us from the local committee.”

Thompson says the OPA last met with the Lambton committee in late May.

“I know they wanted to finalize the layout of Plowmen’s City by June 30, but from an event execution point of view, that is nothing that’s on the critical path for an event of this scale on June 30, which is 15 months before an event. That’s just not doable – that’s just not on the timeline of our critical path.”

Thompson says the IPM offered to meet again with the Lambton committee July 7 but officials declined saying it was in the middle of the wheat harvest.

Thompson is hopeful the OPA can meet with the local committee to work things out.
Beatty of the Lambton committee said Friday’s announcement wasn’t a bargaining tool to move the OPA to an agreement.

“We’re not going to go backwards from this,” he said.
So, if the Lambton IPM committee and the Ontario Plowmens’ Association can’t resolve their difference, what happens next?

“That’s not a question that I’m even prepared to consider at this point,” says Thompson. “We haven’t had discussions as a board about not going to Lambton, so that would be completely improper for me to make any assumptions about anything else.

“We’re still planning on bringing a match to Lambton,” she says.