It was standing room only at the Okotoks Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum Tuesday, October 3.

17 of the 18 councillor candidates, and both mayoral candidates were in attendance to answer questions sent in from the community.

Andrew Gustafson, Okotoks Chamber of Commerce President says his goal was to give a real life example of what a real council meeting looks like for the candidates, and community.

"The candidates will have to know issues and they have to be able to speak to those issues without a lot of time for research, they have to be able to make decisions on those things," he says. "They responded, they educated us on their platforms in the process, but we were also educated as a community on what the issues really are beyond just water."

Candidates for the Office of Councillor were asked 54 questions in a rapid fire format, Gustafson hopes the community feels more educated on who's running after the evening.

"It was an unmitigated success, I feel more educated, I feel like I've got to know the candidates a little bit more. There's a few candidates that are on the fence for me personally, I think that's probably true for a lot of people, and this might help to push them on one side or the other. Hopefully people can make a better more educated decision after tonight."

300 chairs were put out, which were all filled along with tons of attendees standing, Gustafson hopes this is a precursor to election turn out.

"I hope that's an indication of what voter turn out will be on October 16, because we don't have a proud tradition in Okotoks of great turnout during elections, lets see if we can change that this year."