Thursday nights in the summer are about to get interesting again, thanks to the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis Concert bringing its Concert Hall @ The Park Concert Series back beginning June 22 and running through Aug. 3.
The concert series, now in its 13th year, began as a way to shake things up a little downtown, said Charles Leslie, director of the Concert Hall.
“It started with a conversation that I had with Beth Drum and Mike Burns at Alpine bank. We started talking about things we could do together that would activate some downtown things because at the time, there wasn’t much happening downtown,” he said. “And we wanted to get off of the hill, so to speak; we wanted to get the Concert Hall and the college some exposure during the summer months for people who are visiting Durango that may not have known … that there’s a Concert Hall here, and that the college had a really active arts and music program.”
Leslie said the idea of a music series came from when he lived in Austin, Texas, and would take his family to a free concert series called Blues on the Green.
“We would take our kids when they were young and we would take a picnic, and it was really safe. There was no alcohol being sold. It was a really safe environment,” he said. “We could just let our kids run around. And because we were parents of young kids, we didn’t have money and time, you know, to go to concerts, so this was a chance for us to get out and do that.”
So the collaboration between the Concert Hall and Alpine Bank began; at first, they were able to close 11th Street between the bank and 11th Street Station for events. Ultimately, though, Leslie said, the group knew a park would be the perfect place for the concert series.
Enter Buckley Park.
“Buckley was the ideal location because you could walk there, and we started it at 5:30 on Thursday so that people could come after work, as well as people visiting from out of town,” he said. “What’s crazy is now I get people who email and say, you know, we’re planning our summer … we make sure we’re here during the concert season.”
This year’s series features a full slate of musicians, Leslie said, including Shamarr Allen, Frontera Bugualú and Ali McGuirk, whose show was rained out last year.
And speaking of rain: We’re quickly rounding the corner to the time of year when late-afternoon rain and thunderstorms are common. Leslie said one of the big changes to the concerts this year is the addition of a backup venue in case of rain. If the weather looks bad the day of a show, the Concert Hall will alert everyone to the change of venue via an announcement outside the Concert Hall, through social media and by an email blast, which concertgoers can sign up for at durangoconcerts.com.
Keeping a series with a lot of moving parts going for more than a decade is no easy feat – the evenings have gone from 250 to 300 people the first few years to more than 2,000 right before the pandemic, Leslie said – but it’s an affordable way to connect the Concert Hall with the community.
“We love it,” he said. “We want to reach families who may not necessarily be able to afford to come to things up here. You know, when you’ve got three kids and you got to pay for a babysitter, it can be hard, right? So this is our way of hopefully opening up opportunities for families and folks who want to come hear things that otherwise they couldn’t do.”
Attendees may bring blankets, lawn chairs and picnics. Food and drinks from Fired Up Pizzeria will also be available.
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