Street party reprise

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/08/2021 (1600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a regular summer, the Burt Block Party would be an ideal way for those without a cottage at the lake to enjoy a late August weekend of music with friends.

For Kevin Donnelly and the company he works for, True North Sports and Entertainment, the shows on Friday, Saturday, Aug. 27 and 28 provide a return to event promotion after almost 18 months spent postponing or cancelling concert dates, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, and wondering when he’d welcome music fans to a show.

“In my adult life, I’ve never gone 18 months without attending or presenting a show,” Donnelly, True North’s senior vice-president for venues and entertainment, says.

“Céline Dion was in April (2020), James Taylor was in April… there was a lot of shows literally days away when the whole thing came to a grinding halt.”

With no shows to host at its two concert venues (the newly named Canada Life Centre and the Burton Cummings Theatre), True North and its staff spent the ensuing months in talks with provincial health officials to figure out what could be possible further down the road.

Eventually, it targeted late August for a series of outdoor shows if provincial pandemic regulations — not to mention the state of COVID-19’s presence in Winnipeg — allowed them.

It also saw that outdoor events elsewhere in North America, such as the Calgary Stampede in early July, were able to take place following government guidelines.

“The toughest part is trying to plan an event that is outside the current scope of what the public health authority was advising people what was safe to do,” Donnelly says. “We didn’t start planning this a week ago when the rules changed. We started this months and months ago. We’re asking every level of authority and every participant, whether it’s the artists we were talking to or making our submission to the liquor commission or talking to the city to close a street.

“Our planning has paid off and we are within public health’s direction of what can and can’t be staged but we certainly weren’t when we started the process.”

The Burt Block Parties must follow the provincial regulations, and that means ticketholders must provide proof of being fully vaccinated to enter the concert area. The province has allowed up to 4,000 spectators per night in the Burt Block Party area, which includes the small park and parking lot across the street from the theatre, as well as portions of Smith and King streets, which the city will close for all four evenings.

“We’ve got a bigger stage and a bigger presentation than what people witnessed when we put on the BBQ and Blues Festival,“ he says. “(We’re) taking advantage of what is a cool little district in front of our theatre.”

The opening show begins Friday at 5:30 p.m. with B.C. rock group 54-40 headlining a lineup that includes the Jim Cuddy Band — the solo project from the Blue Rodeo frontman — and the Northern Pikes from Saskatoon.

Another Saskatchewan rock group, the Sheepdogs, headline Saturday’s show with Said the Whale and two Manitoba acts who have been added to the lineup, Mise en Scene and the Ripperz.

Classic rock rules the evening of Aug. 27, when Streetheart, a group from the late 1970s heyday of Winnipeg rock, takes the stage with Honeymoon Suite and Winnipeg glam-rockers the Sorels.

The final night of the Burt parties falls on the same evening as the Unite 150 free concert at Shaw Park that is one of the highlights of Manitoba 150 celebrations.

Donnelly believes that by offering a lineup headlined by Black Tiger Sex Machine, a Montreal electronic music group that performs in outlandish costumes and masks adorned with their own lighting, along with other DJs, they will offer counter-programming to the Unite 150 show, which in the evening is headlined by Manitoba classic-rock acts Bachman Cummings and Tom Cochrane.

“We wanted to stay as far from that as we could so we didn’t provide competition with each other and conflict with people’s choices,” he says. “(We’re) adding a bunch of fun stuff, adding video, adding additional lights, adding lasers. It’ll be quite a spectacle on the 28th.”

True North has collaborated with the Winnipeg Folk Festival and Jazz Winnipeg, along with individual artists such as Faouzia and Begonia, by providing the Burt as a venue for streaming shows and videos, but Donnelly says he can’t wait for the real thing.

“As much as I love a band onstage, I love to see an audience,” he says. “Without an audience in all the seats, it’s missing something for me.”

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall