Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
Tourism Jasper is putting on its inaugural Open Air Concert Series next month to show its appreciation to the community.
The free concert series will take place on the CN Place stage in Commemoration Park on Saturday, Sept. 25.
鈥淲e really wanted to convey our appreciation to the entire community,鈥� said James Jackson, president and CEO of Tourism Jasper.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a big thank-you to the entire community for first and foremost being safe, treating visitors with respect and just working together as a community to keep things open and moving forward.鈥�
Although the concert is free and open to the general public, locals will have a chance to reserve their tickets for a week before tickets become available for everyone else.
Jackson said they wanted to host the concert outside in order to accommodate the most amount of people possible and to showcase the CN Place stage, which has only been used once back in October 2019 when it first opened.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really only been used by the community once and since it was built, and we want to make sure that asset is utilized by the entire community,鈥� he added.
Reuben and the Dark will headline, with other talent including Del Barber, Scenic Route to Alaska, The Royal Foundry, The Torchettes, Whale and the Wolf, Sargeant X Comrade and James Renton.
鈥淛ust because budgets are tight, we wanted to keep things fairly local, but we also wanted to sort of give back to the music community in Canada,鈥� Jackson said.
鈥淗onestly, a lot of logistics goes into a concert like this, so we wanted it to be as simple as possible, which meant no border crosses, so we wanted Canadian bands.鈥�
Reuben and the Dark is more well known, whereas some of the other artists who are a little lesser known are provided an opportunity to get in front of a big crowd.
The concert runs rain or shine, but would be cancelled in the event of extreme weather or increased COVID-19 restrictions.
Jackson assured that the concert had room for flexibility in order to accommodate less-stringent health restrictions.
鈥淚t鈥檚 what we call a scalable event, so we can crank up or down the occupancy, obviously working with the municipality and the fire chief,鈥� Jackson said.
鈥淚f COVID taught us one thing over the last year and a half, it鈥檚 to be agile, so we鈥檒l deal with whatever restrictions are thrown at us.鈥�
Food vendors, a beer garden and some programming for kids and adults will also be available.
Attendees are asked to bring their own small lawn chairs.
The gates will open at 2 p.m., the music starts at 3 p.m., the last call is at 10 p.m. and the concert ends at 10:30 p.m.聽
Artist set times will be posted closer to the festival date.
More information can be found at
