Dozens of children react as hundreds of balloons are dropped in the gymnasium at the Big Marble Go Centre during its New Years Eve Fest to ring in 2026.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Dozens of families gathered in the gymnasium at the Big Marble Go Centre to ring in the New Year with a balloon drop on Wednesday afternoon.
The annual New Year’s Eve Fest was a huge success, according to organizers, attracting hundreds of families and children and offering several free activities including swimming, skating, fitness classes and bouncy castles.
“By the showing of people here and the families, it’s a great turnout,” said Rebecca Hirsch, recreation program co-ordinator. “It’s so awesome for these younger kids to have an opportunity to kind of celebrate that New Year, but then still get to bed at a good time.”
The festival kicked off at noon and also included floor hockey, family games, a learn-to-play soccer event, tot time and a sensory quiet play area, leading up to a balloon drop at 3:45 p.m.
“We get so many people through these doors and we get to celebrate just having fun and that’s really what it comes down to is enjoying this space and having fun as a community,” added Hirsch.
In celebration of the Big Marble 25th anniversary, guests were also served free cake and could enter for a chance to win door prizes.
In 2026 the Big Marble Go Centre is looking to expand its physical literacy programming into more local schools through its joint youth spaces programming already offered at the leisure centre.
“Really trying to focus on that younger age group and teach people physical literacy, we already do it in our programs,” explains Hirsch. “We really want to highlight it and actually teach people what physical literacy is.”
This year BMGC is also looking to expand programming at the pool and offer more programming targeted to women and children.
“So we’ve done women’s only swim, sensory swim, which is really nice, and opportunities for lots of different people in the community,” says Hirsch, who says the centre will also be expanding fitness classes offered in 2026.
In 2026 users will also be able to find and register for programming at BMGC through the recreational app designed by the city called “Active MH,” which was recently released for download.
“So it’s really nice because it gives people right in the palm of their hand an opportunity to enrol in a class, to look at opportunities that we offer such as our drop-in programs,” said Hirsch. “People are pushing more towards apps, we’re really happy to be on it.”
The Active MH app can be downloaded from the App Store for iOS devices (iPhone), or from the Google Play store for Android devices by searching simply for “Active MH.”
