Events

Upside Downtown: Concerts + Art line-up for 2025! 

Join us every Thursday in July & August from 5-7pm on Rotary Square at Casa. FREE to attend. From local talent to Juno-nominated artists, Upside Downtown has rock, soul, folk, blues, funk, and country plus everything in between. 

JULY 3*
Veronica Raine
The Decadent Phase

JULY 10*
Makiisma

JULY 17
Joce Reyome

JULY 24
Joshua Beebe & The Forest Orchestra
Willy Big Bull & Wintercount

JULY 31
John Wort-Hannam

AUGUST 7
Nuela Charles

AUGUST 14
Bailey Kate Band

AUGUST 21
Richard Inman & The Western Canadian All-Stars

AUGUST 28 - POP UP, GET DOWN - Dance until 10 pm
Shaela Miller + Guests
ADEQUATE!
Hippodrome

Our final concert on August 28 will be the inaugural POP UP, GET DOWN – A summer dance party with three bands, an art market, and we’re closing 8 Street South! 

Throughout the summer, drop by The Gallery at Casa for Re:Turning the Stories, a community exhibition with over 40 local artists reflecting on their relationship to the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden and Nikkei cultural stories in southern Alberta. 

Follow the @AACLETH and @CASALETHBRIDGE on Facebook and Instagram to see which food trucks will be joining us each week. 

*PS - We will be joined for a pre-show on July 3 & July 10 at 4:45 pm with Chinook High School Battle of the Bands Winners. Supporting emerging talent in our community! 

Thank you to our sponsors for allowing us to provide FREE concerts to the community: FACTOR, Spectrum Ale Co., Westco Construction, Precon, Andrew Hilton, Anova Law Group, CIR Realty, Nectar Tattoo, Safeway, So Normal Print Co., Tourism Lethbridge, and Warwick Printing.

The Upside Downtown Concert Series is programmed by the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge. For more information about this series and the AAC, visit artslethbridge.org/ 

Please join us for the launch of Terrie Shaw’s book on July 13th from 2-3:30 pm. Guests can expect a reading from Terrie Shaw, an opportunity to purchase the book, and light refreshments. 

Terrie Shaw is an Edmonton based artist whose new book, Garden Journey: Stories, Sketches, and Recipes, offers an intimate look at her creative process. Through delicate watercolour sketches, expressive pen-and-ink drawings, and heartfelt journal entries, Terrie’s book captures the ever-changing beauty of the seasons and the quiet magic they bring. Shaw then transforms her homegrown bounty into an array of delicious, garden-inspired recipes, each infused with personal stories and cherished memories. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

When: July 13, 2-3:30pm
Where: Audreys Books, 10702 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, AB

audreys.ca/events 

Off the Beaten Path: A Fantasy Musical Where You Choose the Ending!

Off the Beaten Path is a hilarious, heart-pounding, interactive fantasy musical where you decide what happens next. Will the rogue betray the party? Can the orcs dance their way to redemption? Is that sword fight going to end in glory or disaster?

Set in the magical world of Arlyrus, this thrilling adventure is like live-action D&D meets Broadway—no two shows are the same. Heroes rise. Secrets unravel. And you decide the path they take.

Expect dancing orcs, epic sword fights, and tunes that will live rent-free in your head for days. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll probably want to come back again—just to make sure your favourite hero doesn’t meet their fate this time...

🎟️ Learn More & Tickets: obpmusical.com
📅 Shows: July 4, 5, 6 at 7 pm| Matinee July 5 at 1:30pm
📍 Beddington Theatre Arts Centre | 375 Bermuda Dr NW, Calgary, AB T3K 2J5
 

Workshop Fee: $215 Date & Time: Saturday, July 12, 10 am—1:30 pm MT

Location: Online (Google Meet link sent upon registration)

Join award-winning author, publisher, and creative entrepreneur Alexis Marie Chute for a deep dive into essential strategies every writer needs to thrive in today’s literary landscape. Whether you’re crafting short-form articles or building toward your first (or fifth) book, this session will give you the tools and insights to build a sustainable, income-generating writing career—on your terms.

Schedule:

10 – 11:30 am (1.5 hours)

• Short-form writing, articles, and pitching for publication
• Long-form writing—from book concepts to publication and beyond
• Publishing paths, including traditional, self, and hybrid models
• Building and leveraging your writing portfolio to open new opportunities
• Creative collaborations across genres, disciplines, and media

11:30 am-12 pm – Break for Lunch (30 min)

12 – 1:30 pm (1.5 hours)

• Building your writer platform (website, social media, newsletters)
• Managing your writing life with systems, automation & time management
• Long-game career strategies—becoming your own creative boss
• Financial planning and making money as a writer

This is your chance to invest in your creative future with practical, professional-level guidance tailored to writers who are serious about success.

Join us—and walk away empowered, organized, and ready to grow your writing into a thriving career.

Tickets:bit.ly/4dXMKq6 

Trincan Steel Orchestra Presents: 

The 2nd Annual Western Canada Steel Bands Showcase

Northeast River Valley Park 903-153 Avenue NE Edmonton, AB

Saturday, July 12, 2025

11 am – 7 pm

Free family event!

Caribbean food

Live steel band performances

Culture, rhythm, and vibes!

Steelpan lives here. Don’t miss it!

www.eventbrite.com/e/2nd-annual-western-canada-steel-bands-showcase

En Salle // Indoor Landscape
Svea Ferguson

Leighton Art Centre
June 21–August 24, 2025

282027 144 Street West
Foothills, AB T1S 0Y4

www.leightoncentre.org
www.sveaferguson.com

Svea Ferguson’s current exhibition En Salle // Indoor Landscape indulges in falsified replications of nature, utilizing primarily ready-made, raw, and minimally altered materials. While the French term en plein air refers to painting outdoors within the landscape, en salle means “indoors” or “in the room,” speaking to Ferguson’s interest in interior spaces, faux surfaces, and the mimicry of biological forms. Playing with this reversal of art historical terminology, the works in the show are ostensibly ex situ: made and existing outside their natural locations of reference. These objects and materials are largely devoid of any true connection to the land, and aptly exhibit the strange futility of capitalist desires to manufacture nature.

The sculptural centerpiece of the exhibition, above below beyond, was created for an exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in 2020, which remained largely unviewable due to COVID-19 restrictions. Here the work is reconsidered and expanded in the context of the Leighton Art Centre with the companion work paper sky. This context considers the founders Barbara and A.C. Leighton, whose work was centered on depictions of the land and sky and the practice of plein air painting, a tradition that the Centre carries on in its current programming and collection. Ferguson has created her own version of a landscape through sourcing ready-made objects with pre-packaged nature veneers; carpet made to look like a painterly field of flowers, paper printed to imitate a blue, cloud-filled sky. The materials have been cut to physically open them into net-like forms, allowing natural light from the windows to pass through. Following the logic of the material is key; Ferguson cuts away parts of the floral carpet pattern, following the lines of the pattern itself. This allows the once-solid carpet to open itself to the light, which in turn casts shadows as replacements for the shapes that have been removed. In paper sky, that same carpet pattern is projected onto and cut out of the material as a means of connection between these two spatially separate entities (land and sky).

En Salle // Indoor Landscape acknowledges and complicates our reverence for nature, joining the worlds of “real” and “fake”. As natural light passes over and through the objects, their static surface is activated. Like painting en plein air, the work captures qualities of light and atmosphere, but here there is a disconnect when determining a sense of place; the result is entirely manufactured.

Svea Ferguson (she/her) is a sculptor from Mohkínstsis/Calgary. Her work was commissioned for the 2017 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art and has been shown across North America and abroad. Notable exhibitions include the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Glenbow Museum, Esker Foundation, Division Gallery Toronto, Holland Project NV and Art Athina in Athens, Greece. She received the BMO 1st Art Prize for Alberta in 2015. Her work is included in numerous private collections and the permanent collections of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and TD Canada Trust.