The City’s annual summer festival kicks off in Red Deer this weekend.
CentreFest will take place on July 25th-26th in the City’s downtown.
Officials said the streets of downtown Red Deer will be bustling with some of the best street performers the world has to offer. Artists from Canada, Portugal and the U.S. will excite, ignite and incite the audience senses, officials added.
There will be magic, circus shows, a sculptural clown, a hockey tribute show and more. Officials said the street performers are professionals, having performed thousands of shows across the world in every place imaginable, including the street, theatre, stage, and even movies.
Just last week, Morris and Hazel Flewwelling were named as honourary chairpersons for CentreFest.
“Since inception the Flewwelling’s have always supported this Festival, and they are true supporters of the arts in our community,” said Jan Penney, chair of the Festival. “They have done so much to help increase the awareness of this one of a kind festival. It is a natural fit for us to have them on board as our honourary chairpersons.”
On July 24th, Red Deerians are invited to see a preview of this year’s performers at City Hall Park at the kick-off barbecue at noon. Kids will have the chance to learn circus skills as well.
In addition, a GoFundMe account has been set up for donations under ‘CentreFest Needs Your Support’. Organizers hope to raise $15,000 to seed support for future festivals.
“We get numerous comments from people who have come to the Festival and bring their families down that there is no where else they can go throughout the year and it doesn’t cost them a small fortune,” said Janice Shimek, Festival director. “We thought maybe we should look at something where individuals who have enjoyed CentreFest – if they want to see the Festival continue, maybe they would consider donating that $5, $10 or $20. We have had individuals who have donated $50 because they said they absolutely love it.”
She added if Red Deer lost the Festival, it would be really unfortunate.
“This is a one of a kind event – you do not see these performances anywhere else. I think any time you can have arts and culture in our community is a good thing. I think we need to foster the arts and we don’t do that enough. To lose something like this would be really sad for the community as a whole.”
To donate visit, gofund.me/centrefest.
For more information on this weekend’s event, visit www.centrefest.ca.
– Fawcett
