I took my kids to a Hedley concert. Yes I did.

Chatham is not normally the most interesting place on the planet to live, but it does have some endearing quirks. One of those is a strange ability for a small town to win contests decided by way of online vote. A couple of years ago, Chatham landed the Boardwalk square on the Canadian version of Monopoly, because it was decided by online vote. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that this honour really should have gone to Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, or any other major city in the country... not one that most people have never heard of.

I once heard someone say that the reason Chatham is able to pull feats like this off is because we have such a large population of unemployed people who can sit home and cast online votes all day long. I kinda think that might be true.

Anyway, lightning struck again a couple of months ago, when President's Choice launched an online contest to find BBQTown. Once the online votes were compiled, Chatham was deemed the winner. The event was this past Saturday and the prize was a free President's Choice BBQ for the first 5,000 people and a Hedley concert that was open to up to 15,000.

The BBQ started around noon and we figured that people would line up early and the food would go fast. We didn't feel the need to line up for hours for a free hamburger, and besides, we had two soccer games to attend that day. So we didn't wander down to the park until almost 6 p.m., after a brief downpour had passed (and also after the band had already played an opening song or two).

But we did get there for most of the show, and it was actually a really awesome concert. We have a handful of Hedley songs on our iPods and there were many more that I recognized and just hadn't realized was them. Although I took this photo from the back of the park, we actually got up to within a few rows of the stage, where the viewing was good: I could see the band up close and personal, and also keep an eye on the kids, who were entertaining themselves on the playground off to the side.

There was also plenty of food still being served, despite the fact that they had been going all day. Chad went for the meat and the kids and I made do with ice cream. Organizers later said there were nearly 9,000 people there, and the food was still being dished up as we left, so clearly they under-promised and over-delivered on the 5,000 person cap.

Anyway, it was good free fun for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, close to home to boot - can't ask for more than that! Maybe when my kids are older they will remember that we were cool parents who took them to a Hedley concert at the ages of 5 and 7...

So if anyone hears of any other online voting competitions with cool prizes up for grabs - let me know. It might be another prize Chatham can go after!!