It’s been a challenging couple of years for the Lacombe Performing Arts Centre. They have been working to offer classes in the arts, put on performances, and offer live music to the City of Lacombe all in the midst of the pandemic. COVID has become a bit of an obstacle in establishing roots in the City but this year, they are looking forward to bringing people together in a greater capacity.

The organization purchased their building on 5227 C&E Trail in October of 2019 leaving only a few months’ time for the organization to get their bearings and put on a couple events before the pandemic hit.

“We're just starting to get some concert series on the go during the year of 2019. We were able to get a youth theater program in that just finished right before everything got shut down, thankfully. We were just beginning to build up all these different programs and start serving our community with some different arts and culture and then everything got shut out,” explained Rosanna Kerekes, Executive Director of the Lacombe Performing Arts Centre.

However in 2021, the organization was able to rebuild some of their programming and performances as the province opened up. Kerekes says it was great to open up to the public and have people together once again.

“October was our first concert that we had in the facility since before March of 2020. It was amazing just to bring back some live music and we had a few different homegrown theater performances, concerts, and recitals. It was really wonderful to be bringing back some events into our facility and having people come out and safely enjoy those,” said Kerekes.

A performance takes place at the Lacombe Performing Arts Centre.

Photo courtesy of the Lacombe Performing Arts Centre. 

In addition to live events held at their facility, the organizations also hosted another successful season of Music in the Park.

“We're coming up to our 10th season of music in the park and it really has become like a community staple for people. In 2020, when we had to cancel I think it was really noticed by a lot of community members because everybody from the young to old all ability. Everybody just came out to enjoy some music together. We were so fortunate to be able to bring it back last year and I think we only were rained out for one last concert,” said Kerekes.

Looking at what’s in store for 2022, Kerekes looks forward to expanding programming, and their volunteer base.

“We have lost volunteers, but the issue is as we're trying to rebuild programming and bring new events and expand all of our services. It takes a lot of hands on deck kind of thing. Our main concern is not tiring out the volunteers that we do have,” she added.

Although rebuilding will be essential for this year, the organization looks forward to offering new events and ways of bringing people together to enjoy the arts.

“We have some different theater programs work on in the books we're going to be doing some shorter workshops, weekend type workshops for youth and adults… I'm just finalizing a few different concerts again. We're going to be bringing back our concert series into the facility and we have different partnerships happening. We're looking to work with different community programs and resources to get some inclusive programming happening in the facility as well,” added Kerekes.