Music is a passion of mine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no musician; I learned the piano growing up, have taught myself a little bit of both the guitar and ukulele as an adult, and my singing is relegated to crappy karaoke bars only. But my love for music is huge and I’ve discovered the best way to be close to that is by planning music-related events. This is not an easy industry to get into, but I was lucky enough recently to assist in coordinating a benefit concert featuring Kenny Shields & Streetheart.
Over the past few years in my previous job, I worked with a group called Rock’n August. They plan a wickedly cool car & music festival that takes place each year in St. Albert, Alberta, which usually culminates in an August concert. This year, however, they wanted to try something different and hold a concert in the spring to raise money for the Alberta Diabetes Foundation.
A previous coworker of mine and I had always worked together well, so when the group approached Michelle (check her out on Instagram!) to help with the event, she brought me on board. We started work on this event in the fall, naming it Rock’n April. This event was not without its challenges, but putting it all together was certainly a learning experience.
Michelle and I were lucky in that our headlining act, Kenny Shields & Streetheart, could not have been more gracious or easy to work with. They did everything they possibly could to support the fundraising aspect of our event, and all with genuine smiles on their faces. We could not have asked for a better group for our very first concert.
And aside from that, the other people and companies involved in this event made it an evening to remember. Our opening act, local group Dash Riprock, came out sounding amazing and started the night with an absolute bang. We had the lovely Robbin Reay as our Master of Ceremonies, who was charming and funny and helped the evening to flow beautifully. Our A/V company, Hanson Productions, was involved in the planning of the event from practically the very beginning, and they worked hard to make sure we had absolutely everything we needed.
Thank you to everyone – these groups, all of the event sponsors, countless volunteers, and so, so many others that I haven’t mentioned here – that helped make this concert a success.
I can’t wait for the next opportunity I have to plan a concert or music event! This is an area that I am extremely interested in and passionate about, so I will be counting the days until another project like this one comes my way.
Venue: St. Albert Curling Club
Master of Ceremonies: Robbin Reay
A/V: Hanson Productions
Opening Act: Dash Riprock
Headlining Act: Kenny Shields & Streetheart
Check out some photos of the show by Alex Gavinchuk! Click into the gallery to scroll through them all.
Have you ever planned a concert or wanted to do so? What were the most difficult parts or what are you most worried about? Let’s chat in the comments!
Cheers,
KG
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