2024
2024 was a "back to the basics" type of year. We stuck to what we know well, and what we do well. We of course maintained our Movie in the Park operations, our sixth annual Summer Market, and our Cultural Evolut!on festival, which was hosted for a second year in partnership with Run Regina!
Cultural Evolution was a great time with performances by many musicians and artists, we hosted multiple cultural teachings throughout the September weekend, and just celebrated how wonderful our queen city is!
Below is a run through of what took place that weekend.
We are so excited to have partnered with Andrew Robertson for his amazing mural at the Albert Street Chiropractic Clinic.
Thousands of runners pass by at 2155 Albert Street on Sunday, Sept 8th during the QCM marathon. Take a look if you are near Albert Street and 14th Ave.
2023
2023 was an action-packed, event-filled year! We hosted several types of events, including over 20 movie nights across southern Saskatchewan, our Summer Market, and our Cultural Evolut!on festival, which was hosted in partnership with Run Regina! Check out our fall newsletter below to get a more detailed look at what we were up to in 2023!
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2022
And we said 2022 was going to be a relaxing year... holy smokes was it another action packed, event filled year, starting in February with two Valentine events and ending in November with participation in the Santa Clause parade. We hosted monthly busker events at the Southland Mall all year long, organized the wagon rides with the Wascana Winter Festival, held over 20 movie nights throughout Southern Saskatchewan, another successful (and massive) two day Summer Market event (www.summermarket.ca), youth club, and a massive celebration of our diverse culture in October with the second annual Cultural Evolut!on held over three days at the Southland Mall. Take a look at the recap graphics and the videos from the cultural teachings. All the events can be found on our social media @SummerBashYQR and hope you follow along to get involved for 2023.
Cultural Evolution - October 2022
We had a student heritage fair, three days of busking and two days of cultural teachings. The teachings were recorded can all can be found below at the links if you wish to learn more:
2021
2021 was by far our busiest year since starting five years ago. Thank you to the thousands and thousands of people that support us by attending, volunteering, sharing the info and just being awesome.
Here is our recap poster:
See the 2021 Year in Stats:
Winter Heat
Saturday, February 13, 2021
It was a romantic and intimate night hosted on Valentine Weekend. The event sold out in two weeks and was great to see the community support! It was a magical night out with patrons' significant others who joined us on the rooftop of the Cornwall Centre Parking Lot. Not only was it a great view of the movie but was an opportunity to stargaze from the roof.
Our personalized window service included one vehicle admission to watch Dirty Dancing (movie license sponsored by Knight Archer Insurance!), a beautiful charcuterie board supplied by Takeaway Gourmet, some sparkling juice, two handmade cards from Krafty Karen (people were encouraged to fill out during the night and share with their loved one), a valentine chocolate and candy basket provided by Save-On-Foods, a large locally popped bag of cinema popcorn from Pure Sweetness Treat Shoppe, and a Tim Horton's hot chocolate right to your window during the night to keep you warm.
Folks ended the night with our "Package of Love" that will allow you to continue the romance at home with an artistic package. The entire package was in part sponsored and provided by an amazing local gift shop, With These Hands. The package was valued at $100 and included a beautiful wood wick candle from Prairie Creek Candles, bath bombs and shower steamers from BodyBlyss, a love inspired canvas wall sign from Yo's Creations, romance essential oil from Beyond Wellness, valentine sugar cookies from Tresa's Tasty Treats, tea blends (Northern Sask) from Boreal Tea, chocolate covered popcorn from With These Hands, a homemade flavoured jar of honey from Polinsky Honey, and a basket for all of it to easily carry home.
After all the costs were paid (and over 20 local businesses supported), we had close to $1,000 with all proceeds from the event going to support the YWCA Regina women's shelter!
Waskimo - Wagon Rides in the Park
Saturday, February 20 & Sunday, February 21, 2021
The Waskimo events looked a lot different this year. We didn't want to let another year pass without some type of winter wonder fun, and we presented "Wagon Rides in the Park!" Within only a couple of days, the entire event was sold out and what a beautiful weekend it turned out to be!
Each ride was about 15 minutes and ticket holders loaded from in front of the Legislative Building. The Clydesdales were ready to work and we had two sleigh rides running all weekend with a special, first-ever, stagecoach ride! Families were able to meet the horses before each ride and get to learn some facts about the beautiful animals. Because of Covid restrictions, each ride was limited to one family.
The goal was to celebrate our wonderful winter and create a safe event for families to enjoy.
Thank you to the City of Regina and PuroClean who supported us in keeping our costs low.
Movie Nights
June to September
The summer was packed with movie nights almost every weekend with 31 in total. 13 of these were public movies with a mix of Drive-ins... and this year we slowly returned to movies in the park as well! It was great to get back to where we started with the Movie Nights. We turned to renting our screen again to raise funds supporting our community association and did eighteen partnerships over the summer. Some of the trusted partners were Ranch Ehrlo for a second year, SaskPower, Martin School of Dance, SaskExpress, Normanview West Community Association, University of Regina, YWCA, REALM Foundation, and towns such as Vibank, Lang, Qu'Appelle, and Lumsden. We have many references and can provide proof that we offer great prices but that our crew can handle all of the logistics and details for you.
Summer Camps
June - August
We ventured into a series of summer camps hosted at The Landing in Harbour Landing, and honestly, all we can say is we don't think we will host again. We are going to stick to what we are good at and summer camps are better hosted by the amazing partners in the city that already host great programs. Enough said lol.
Summer Market
August 14 & 15
In August, we held the third annual Summer Market which has its own branding including the website at www.SummerMarket.ca. We had over 90 vendors attend, 6 food trucks, and over 4,000 people in attendance!
Cultural Evolut!on
October 2021
And in October, for the first time ever, we hosted a three event series under the new brand, Cultural Evolut!on. We received a large grant from the Canadian Heritage funding through the Government of Canada and were able to support 110 artists, musicians and students in sharing their cultures and heritages. The first event was a seven part series of virtual teachings in which sold out in only a couple of days. Our second event was a Buskers Showcase which featured 30 musicians playing in five locations at the Southland Mall on October 30th. And in the same location on October 31st, we held a Trick or Treat Heritage Fair in which we hosted six bands on stage, cultural performances, and 28 students performing in a Heritage Fair. The weekend had over 10,000 people in attendance!
Recap of the Buskers Showcase
Recap of the Trick or Treat Heritage Fair
2020
2020 was not expected. Our plans had to be completely rewritten but rather than give up, we continued planning ways that we could connect during COVID. And we pushed forward with not only planning a few events but stepping up our efforts and hosting over 30 movie nights, a music festival and the second annual Summer Market. You can download our full 2020 Summary Package with the PDF on this page.
Movie Nights
To do this, we invested the Community Associations funds into buying a 40-foot inflatable screen, a commercial-grade 8,000 lumens projector, FM transmitter, audio equipment, two massive trailers, and a lot of other equipment. We spent over $50,000 on equipment with a plan to break-even after two years. Our objective is to have an asset that our entire community can benefit from over the next five to ten years!
We hosted movies Onward, Hairspray, Yesterday, Shazam, Wonder Woman, Moana, Frozen 2, The Breakfast Club, Toy Story 4, Trolls World Tour, Dolittle, The Lion King, Coco, Finding Dory, Aladdin, Monster Inc., Dirty Dancing, Incredibles 2, Big Hero 6, The Notebook, Up, and our newest Bollywood feature, Yeh Jawanni Hai Deewani (played in Hindi with English subtitles). Events were hosted first at the University of Regina, we then moved to the Regina International Airport, spent two weeks in the town of Odessa, and then ended the year with movie nights at the Conexus Arts Centre parking lot.
We began renting out the screen for private functions, community events, and small-town celebrations. We will continue this for the next few years to help pay for the capital costs of the screen.
Take a look at a video done from our very first 'test night' while we were at the University of Regina.
Music Festival
We partnered this year with the Regina Folk Festival to create the first live-music festival of its kind across Canada. So proud to be able to support so many artists and included: Marshall Burns, Ava Wild, Megan Nash & The Best of Intentions, Bree & Brown, Andino Suns, and Davy Sage. We also had a number of great cultural performances from Terrance Littletent, L-Sly, Brad Bellegarde, Sask Express and more.
It was amazing to celebrate live music in a safe way. View the clips of all the performances by clicking the links below:
Recap Video of Folk Fest 2020
Musicians & Multicultural Performances
Summer Market
It looked a lot different than past years but still was an amazing opportunity to host a socially distanced and safe event. While masks were mandatory and the policy received some resistance, overall, most appreciated the new policy and we had a great turnout. Over 2,500 citizens attended the event from August 29 and 30 with approximately 60 local vendors.
New branding took place with a dedicated website at www.SummerMarket.ca.
2019
Wow, 2019 was a whirlwind. We had two full-time students funded by the Canada Summer Jobs grant and with extra students, we ramped things up by doing our first annual Summer Market (www.SummerMarket.ca). With over 20,000 citizens attending our Market, the Movie Nights and the main Summer Bash Festival, there was something for everyone in 2019. The brochure below explains it in more detail:
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Want to see the action from two of the events from 2019? Take a look at the 2019 main Summer Bash Festival Recap below, we have a great video that captures the vibe from the 2019 movie nights, and some video footage from the Summer Market held August 11, 2019.
2018
2018 is where we really took off. We received funding for a summer student which allowed the current volunteer organizing committee (everyone was running the events 'off the side of their desks') to really step up planning and begin proper documentation of the processes. We continued the strategy to keep all events free so that all in our community could enjoy it.
With the ambition to add more of a build-up to the main festival, it was decided we would do 'mini-bashes' leading up to the large Summer Bash Festival. These mini-bashes ended up becoming a small festival with kids activities and then a bi-weekly free movie night in the park.
These Movie Nights were done during the Summer months with us supporting local schools at each one by them keeping the funds from our canteen. We had over 4,000 people attending the five movie nights in the park and was great to celebrate the community. The movie played that year were:
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June 28 playing Shrek: Supporting Argyle School
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July 12 Lego Batman: Ethel Milliken School
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July 26 Inside Out: Dr. A.E. Perry School
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August 9 The Princess Bride: Ecole St. Pius School
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August 23 Wonder: Ecole Harbour Landing School
The main Summer Bash Festival took place on Sunday, August 26, 2018, in Harbour Landing, with 10,000 residents attending. It is worth noting that this many people attended even though we had consistent light showers for five hours. Yep, five hours of rain was not ideal but we still had a blast with the entire community and celebrated our diversity!
Some highlights from the main festival was our first trial run at a pancake breakfast and served 1,500 residents at no cost to them, and then later had a free community BBQ with over 3,500 meals served. The 50/50 supporting the new Ecole Harbour Landing playgrounds reached over $14,000 at our events with all proceeds going towards building the new playgrounds you see there today! And our free shuttle bus was successful with over 800 people using the service to reduce the parking congestion around the residential streets of Fairchild Park, where we hosted the event.
2017
This is where it all started. Adam Hicks, newly elected to the School Board wanted a way to give back to the families that put their trust in him. Ian Leverington representing the Albert Park & Harbour Landing Community Association was looking for a way to connect and reach out to the city's newest and most culturally diverse area in Regina. This is the reason the location of hosting the event in Harbour Landing was first decided.
Working together they knew they could something amazing - and keep it free for all to enjoy! Taking place on Sunday, August 27, 2017, organizers expected a maximum of 3,000 citizens to attend and were blown away when the gate counters announced we hit over 9,000 citizens. Triple the goal!
We thank all our sponsors and partners who took a chance on us that first year when all we could tell them was to, "trust us, we can pull it off!" Their faith in what we could accomplish really built the foundation for all the remaining years.
Some points we would like to highlight are:
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Almost half of the attendees were children;
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We fed over 3,000 people with a free BBQ;
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Over 200 organizations were involved in programming for 2017; and
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Over 90 volunteers assisted in running the event.
