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The Saskatchewan Jazz Festival returns to Saskatoon today.
The annual 10-day festival takes place across Saskatoon, but the main events of the day and performances will take place at Victoria Park.
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“Seventy-five per cent of the program is completely free, including our neighbourhood pop-up program, four days at Victoria Park and more,” explained the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival’s executive director, Shannon Josdal.
Josdal said their neighbourhood pop-up program allows everyone in the city to get involved.
“Our neighbourhood pop-up program is something we started in 2023, which is a program where local businesses buy in and sponsor an artist to perform in new and unusual places where you might not expect a concert to be,” Josdal said.
“This year, we have 32 of those shows and two of them are happening outside of Saskatoon – one is happening at White Cap First Nation at the Dakota Dunes Resort and the other is happening in Hepburn, Saskatchewan.”
When it comes to getting to the jazz festival in Saskatoon, Josdal mentioned it’s encouraged that you take public transportation to the venues.
“We know that parking and travelling in that area can be a concern, so we actually provide a free shuttle. It’s called the Sask. jazz shuttle and it’s provided by SGI,” she said.
“You can hop on the free shuttle bus. You don’t have to worry about parking, and you don’t have to worry about walking in the dark. You can get a free ride to the festival through that service.”
The free shuttles will include four stops: the Broadway Theatre, James Hotel, Maurice Drouin Lounge and Victoria Park.
It will take 40 minutes for the shuttle to complete one loop of all four stops. There will be a shuttle bus at each pick-up location approximately every 20 minutes.
Josdal is hopeful Saskatoon shows up for the big event.
“We hope that folks, when they’re thinking about where to spend their very hard-earned entertainment dollars, that they think of us. We are locally produced. There’s no Live Nation involved here. This is all done locally by local people. We have over 450 volunteers involved in producing this festival,” Josdal explained.
“We’re a registered charity and we provide a ton of outreach programming to the city, including our care home outreach program, where we send artists to local care homes.
“We are really trying to be a part of the community and reach out to the community.”
