Exhibition Park announces new StagEX Music Festival for this year’s Whoop-Up Days

Exhibition Park has partnered with Trixstar Productions, Alberta based live event and entertainment consultants who have produced marquee events like the Big Valley Jamboree, Soundtrack Music Festival and the 2018 Grey Cup Festival among many others.

Trixstar Productions Director of Operations Brennan McFaul says they’re excited to partner with Exhibition Park to help develop a creative entertainment program that will build on the over 100-year history that Exhibition Park has.

“The newly unveiled StagEX will immediately bring attention to the region and over the next few years continue to grow into one of Western Canada’s premier summer events.”

Some of the details are still being withheld for now, but Warkentin says lineup and ticket information will be announced on Tuesday, April 2.

“There will be a bit of a change in the ticketing strategy this year, but I will say that it’s a significant financial investment by our board of directors,” he continued. “They believe in the opportunity that exists with this, and so there is going to be a significant financial investment over the next three to five years.”

Exhibition Park will also be introducing increased security measures at Whoop-Up Days in 2019.

The purpose behind the increased security is to increase the overall comfort of all guests while on site.

Among the safety measures will be security check-points at all entry gates to the Park, and Warkentin explains that’s all about StagEX.

“Obviously, the safety of our guests is of the utmost importance to us. With a bigger entertainment offering and more people coming to the grounds than we’ve had in the past, we want to make sure that safety is maximized. We’re going to have a communications plan specific to that because I think it will be unique offerings to what Lethbridge has seen in the past, but the details of that are still people worked out.”

One other big change is the layout of the site for the concerts will change.

“Pioneer Park, the previous location for the main stage at Whoop-Up Days, we’re going to shift the stage and orientate it to the south. The StagEX festival grounds will actually be the entire grass strip that was formerly for overflow parking on Parkside Drive,” Warkentin said.

Exhibition Park is also introducing Family Day at Whoop-Up Days, which will be replacing the Children’s & Family Festival. “We believe that we can better serve the community with the entertainment offering we provide during Whoop-Up Days” CEO of Exhibition Park Rudy Friesen said.

Warkentin added that after examining all of their events, they believed that the entertainment offering they could offer families at Whoop-Up Days is significantly more extensive than what they would be able to offer in a stand-alone event.

“The critical mass is always coming to Whoop-Up Days, and we wanted to able to allow families to be able to experience all of that.”

Family Day at Whoop-Up Days will occur on Wednesday, August 21. The Park entrances will open at 10:00 a.m. on Family Day and there will be discounted ticket options for the day.

“I think there’s been a little bit of buzz, and I think after today there’s going to be a lot of buzz,” Warkentin stated, adding internally and with their board of directors, there’s been buzz because of what this could mean for the organization moving forward.

Tickets for Whoop-Up Days will be available for purchase on Friday, April 5, beginning at 10:00 a.m.

by Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Exhibition Park announces new StagEX Music Festival for this year’s Whoop-Up Days

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