A new rodeo arena between the Farm-City Pro Rodeo grounds and Burns Pavilion is among improvements in 2020 to Hermiston's Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center site.

HERMISTON — The pandemic threw a lot at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center, but General Manager Al Davis feels confident in its future.

“COVID still kicked us in the gut, but we did a lot better than a lot of other venues,” he said.

Part of that was thanks to EOTEC’s outdoor areas, which were able to hold some events even as indoor conventions and dinners were canceled. The rodeo arena hosted a variety of rodeo-related events, Davis said.

To help draw more of those kind of events, the center recently installed a second arena area using fencing, some movable bleachers and irrigation. The space is on the same footprint that EOTEC’s master plan calls for an indoor arena someday, so the infrastructure can be reused after basically placing a building on top of it.

Davis said they’ve already picked up two world series events for roping later in the year that needed two arena areas, and it also has come in handy for other situations.

“When we do barrel racing, it’s our warmup pen,” he said.

Davis also pointed out other recent improvements, including additional irrigation and new trees.

“We’re greening it up,” he said.

The trees are fast-growing varieties, he said, but people comparing the old fairgrounds on Orchard Avenue to EOTEC need to remember the big shade trees there came from decades of growth.

Indoors, EOTEC is serving a cooling station for the community this week. Davis said the center recently held its first wedding and first Quinceañera in more than a year, and he is optimistic more of those sorts of events will begin to come back as COVID-19 restrictions lift.

During the pandemic, indoor use of EOTEC was mostly limited to small meetings for groups that wanted to have more social distancing than their building allowed.

“We would have like 10 people in the great room, sitting in opposite corners,” he said.

The Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center is planning to host the Umatilla County Fair and Farm-City Pro Rodeo Aug. 11-14.