Monday, June 12, 2017

Celebrating Summer in Southern Alberta



The Newsy Neighbour Magazine
June Issue #116
Article Provided By: Kyle Penn

Come out to the Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival and Sessions in the Park!

After a long, miserably cold winter that seemed to hang around forever (including a brief, stormy encore that brought with it a windy snowfall at the end of May!), warm weather and sunny days have finally returned to southern Alberta. We love summer on the Prairies, and are excited to kick off the season by bringing our 3rd Annual Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival to Strathmore once again!

The Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival is a highlight of the year for us, matched only by our annual Reader’s Choice Best in Business Awards in scope and scale. We love hosting this summertime event, because it really gives us the opportunity to let our hair down and have some fun. There will be entertainment for folks of all ages, with face painting, BBQs, giveaways, lots of delicious food and refreshments, and so much more!

As much fun as the bouncy castles and beer gardens are, though, the Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival really starts to shine at that point where everybody gets involved. Everything we do is at its best when the community gets behind it – and lucky for us, we live in a place full of some of the most passionate community members and business owners around! Last year, attendance was up double over what we saw during the Festival’s first run, which absolutely blew us away. What we loved even more than those numbers, though, was seeing the enthusiasm that business owners brought to the streets of Strathmore, and the consequent embracing of these local shops and services by everyone attending the Festival. The main goal of the Festival has always been about promoting small business within Strathmore, and the past two events have been entirely successful in that drive. We’re really looking forward to seeing the best and brightest of our community’s local businesses showcased in sunny Strathmore once again – we’re sure everyone will bring their A game, as they always do!

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Newsy Neighbour event if it wasn’t bigger and better than the year before. To that end, we’re expanding the musical element of the Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival in a big way. First, we’ll be kicking off the live entertainment with a special Backyard Jam, showcasing some of the best and brightest up-and-coming musical talent, all local and from right here, in our own “backyard”! We’ll be following the Jam up with the inaugural edition of Sessions in the Park – an outdoor concert with a musical lineup you won’t want to miss! If you’ve been following along with our monthly Live Music columns, you’ll surely see some familiar names and faces: New Soul Duo, Envy, and Sarah Beth Keeley will be performing live, starting at 4PM, with fan favourites Junk heading up the after party. Of course, none of this would be possible without the gracious support of our backers at Legends Kitchen and Bar, who are sponsoring Sessions in the Park so that it remains free for everyone to come out and enjoy the show!

We’ve pulled out all the stops to make this event a memorable one, and can’t wait to bring the very best in local business and music to Strathmore on June 17th. Whether you’re a participating business owner, a talented performer, or an excited community member, we look forward to seeing everybody there. The last two Get to Know Your Neighbour Festivals have been complete successes in every measure of the word, and we look forward to continuing this tradition by spotlighting our community’s best, brightest, and most talented members once again.

If you have yet to attend a Get to Know Your Neighbour Festival, make 2017 the year you dive headfirst into things! There really is an indescribable energy in the air around the event, and there can be no group of individuals and businesses more welcoming and friendly than those from Strathmore, Langdon, Chestermere, and the surrounding communities. We bet you’ll be surprised by all the fun there will be to have, and by all the stand-out businesses and services that will be there for you to explore and experience. Spend June 17th with friends and family in Strathmore – come out, and get to know your neighbour!


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