Wide Skies draws strong crowd
Inaugural event part of city’s downtown diversity
It was a first-time event, and it attracted quite a crowd. Organizer Mike Spencer says this week’s Wide Skies Music & Arts Festival drew about 1,000 people on opening night Wednesday.
“We were very pleased with the response.”
The two-day event concluded Thursday with a concert in Southminster United Church.
On Wednesday, the street alongside the church was transformed in a festival site with bleachers, chairs and artists’ displays facing a large stage. Southminster’s parking lot was shared by food trucks and a beer garden.
“Southminster Church was phenomenal,” says Spencer.
As well as serving as Thursday’s concert venue, he says it became the logistics base for the festival, and a place where the musicians could eat and relax. It also served as a back-up location for Wednesday night’s concert.
There was certainly no rain, but Spencer says trees along the street offered much-needed shade. Festivalgoers appreciated the site, he reports.
“People really liked having the festival there,” with about 150 of them riding a bicycle there on Wednesday. Many others walked or used transit.
“We were extremely pleased with the way it worked out,” Spencer says — and with the support from local businesses that allowed Wednesday’s events to be offered free. A Heart of Our City grant helped with the logistics. George Kuhl, the City’s planning initiatives manager, says the activity grants program supports many downtown events through the year.
“We want people to enjoy their experience downtown,” he says.
Events like these encourage people to mix and mingle.
“We want our downtown to be an inclusive place.”
The new Multicultural Centre is adding to to the diversity of events in the city centre, Kuhl adds. This weekend, Kuhl points out, the Bhutanese community is in the spotlight.
There are fewer festivals in August, he notes. But upcoming events at Galt Gardens include the Lethbridge Electronic Music Festival on Aug. 19, followed by CKXU Radio’s Love and Records festival and the Oktoberfest in September.