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City Public Information Centre on historic Jackson Park Bandshell’s future · Kvetch & Release

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  Well, last night, the future of the Jackson Park Banchell was the focus
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  of a public information session. People made their way over to help the city
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  get some feedback about what people want from the banshell as it exists. There
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  were signboards that were up that showed what it looked like, what the past
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  of it involved, the celebrations going back to Emancipation Day and beyond. And
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  one person who was there who took part in the information session is a co
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  owner of Just Cake Productions, which puts on jazz in the Park, as
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  well as a co host with me full disclosure on Rose City politics, Kristen,
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  I don't know. Lots of people find themselves saying that they don't know
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  me. Kristin Sappis joins me live in the studio. Kristin, how you
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  doing, Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, Thanks
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  for joining me here. So what was the information session like last night?
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  I always get afraid when these things happen that it's just going to be signboards
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  and like maybe one guy sitting with like a small notepad that has enough room
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  for like seven notes, and I go, oh, sorry, ran on
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  notes, you gotta go. That's that's pretty close, I would say no,
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  no, no, no. There were lots of great signboards. Don't
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  get me wrong, there was lots of great information, and actually it was
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  it was really nice to see all the information, all the information laid out
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  in a really comprehensive way. I think there's a lot of questions about the
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  banshell. I think there's some important information that needs to be shared about its
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  history, its significance, and some conversations about what it might become in the
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  future. So there's an opportunity. I'm gonna plug it right now because I'm
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  excited about it. I want to hear lots of people, you know,
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  providing their feedback on it. There is an opportunity to engage with the survey.
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  If you go to the City of Windsor website, you can get a
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  link to give your feedback on the banshell. So maybe after we have this
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  discussion, you'll have some thoughts that you want to share. Definitely visit the
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  City of Windsor website and put in your thoughts. We had an opportunity to
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  do that on paper last night as well, and given all the information last
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  night, I think there's some really interesting conversations that can take place for sure.
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  So the conversation is about the future of it, what are we going
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  to do with it? And we know we've heard a lot of consternation about
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  it's going to cost incredibly amount. We have to go spend hundreds of thousands
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  to find out how many millions we'd have to spend to fix the thing.
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  It goes back to eighteen ninety nine. The thing was built in gross Point,
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  Michigan. It's got a long history. What you were chatting about with
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  me off air briefly was a lot of it seemed to be at the meeting
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  focused on the past of it, what brought it to where we're at today.
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  Right, So this is actually the second iteration of the Banchell. So
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  the older one, I think that you were just mentioning, did have a
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  place in Jackson Park and represented an opportunity a meeting place for Emancipation Day celebrations
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  throughout the twentieth century, and so it has a place of significance. There
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  was a fire, it burned down, they rebuilt it, and so this
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  particular Banshell is the rebuilt version and it has a particular significance to the black
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  community. I'm not going to speak about that because I know there's lots of
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  people who are going to say fantastic things about that. We were able to
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  learn some of that information last night on those boards that indicated how important it
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  is to the community those historic celebrations, and then how the band shall continue
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  to be used as a place for Battle of the Bands and as a place,
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  you know, a meeting place, a place of celebration for the arts
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  and that kind of thing as well. So we've heard that it doesn't quite
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  work anymore because the city lost a lot of the space that we had to
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  the existing the football field that's behind it. Although the school board has said,
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  like, hey, we're down with having some conversations, maybe a shared
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  usage thing. What is it that you would like to see the band shall
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  become, Because at the end of the day, the conversation is really about
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  the fact that it is a unique size and place that can serve a unique
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  community. Yeah, I think the important thing right now, even though you
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  know the area around it has changed somewhat. It is adjacent to the school
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  board lands. Although the school board has said, yeah, let's have a
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  conversation about it. Even in the limited space that we have right now,
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  they're saying it seats about let's say, five hundred people. Now, my
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  background is the arts community. I've done a lot of work with live performing
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  arts groups in the industry locally and we particularly I'm involved with a group called
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  Windsor Essex Theater Alliance, and we did a membership survey that surveyed twenty five
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  over twenty five different arts makers in the local area, and that was one
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  of the things that they identified as a need that we don't have a space
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  that's local, that's publicly owned, that's accessible, that seats about five hundred
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  people, because for the size of events that we're putting on, this particular
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  space would be right sized for a lot of different groups. So to me,
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  I look at this as an opportunity to match something that is already publicly
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  owned, that the city can provide as an investment in our arts community and
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  can help to provide scaffolding for those groups, those emerging artists that want to
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  put on events in the park. Now again, I am somebody who's put
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  on events in the park. We did Jazz in the Park series last summer.
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  We're excited to do it again this summer. And so I've actually worked
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  in various city parks, you know, putting on these live events for up
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  to five hundred people, exactly the size that it would be for this this
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  Banchell, And I know what a great experience it can be for the public
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  and for our artists in the community. To bring together these events of this
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  size. I think they can make a great impact. And so for that
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  reason, I think, yeah, let's save the Banchell. Let's take a
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  look at what it has to what it will cost us as a city to
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  invest in our arts industry, to invest in our history, and to really
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  make a significant impact for both the arts community and for the black community as
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  well. You know, having played in a band that has performed through at
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  Winds or happened down the four oh one corridor to audiences of like two hundred
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  to three hundred before, as well as having put on shows to around that
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  number. My parents did lose fester for a number of years. I've got
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  a pretty good idea of crowd sizes and what fits. I'm looking at the
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  one poster board here from last night where they say that three hundred to five
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  hundred attendees could fit there in that location. I would challenge that thought press
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  us. I think you could easily fit a thousand people there, if not
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  more, because I've been in some bars that have had like four hundred people
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  and they're a lot smaller. It seems like this is kind of being presented
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  in a way to sway people towards looking at well, City Hall Square seems
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  like it's a perfect spot, and we're already spending a lot of money to
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  be put there. In the s plot, what do you know, Well,
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  it's interesting. I had a great conversation with some of the city staff
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  that was there last night about just that, about some of the opportunities that
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  are coming up for the city. There's big investments being made in the Civic
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  Esplanade and there's an opportunity for a performance space there. But as we started
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  to dig into the conversation, it kind of seems like it's not going to
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  be anything like an amphitheater. It might not really see that number of people
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  that they had on the placards. They can go check it out online.
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  They have all the information up there. I don't think that it is a
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  comparator to me. It certainly would be a different kind of space than in
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  a different type of performance space than what this could offer. I don't see
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  anything like this in the city. Honestly. There's a couple of different public
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  spaces. There's the Lansbury Park Bandstand, the potential for the Civic Esplanade.
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  There's the Gigantic Festival Plaza, which they say is at least ten thousand people
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  at least like phenomenally large. And when I think about the arts groups that
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  we have, it's not a great match for them. There's not a lot
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  of arts groups that I know or you know, short of of the wonderful
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  series that WFF put on there, the Whiff under the Stars series. It
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  takes up a lot of space. And like the bigger festivals, sure you're
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  going to have ten thousand people there, but for the arts community, for
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  the people who are putting on live performances, local musicians, you know,
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  this Amphitheater could provide more scaffolding for the type of work that they do.
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  Well. You know, it is concerning because they say right here in structural
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  condition rotating, relocating the bandshell is not possible. So when you say save
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  the bandshell, that seems like it's the only conversation point that we can be
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  having. I think that there's interest there, and there's potential there. There's
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  enough there that I would want to look at this space and say, Okay,
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  we have a use for it. It can make a positive impact.
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  Now, how much is it going to cost us? And I really think
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  that we need to frame it in the sense that, you know, they
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  had some some numbers that they kind of threw out there that it's going to
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  be so many million dollars to do this with it, so many million dollars
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  to do that with it, And those are numbers that I would really want
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  to pick apart because I think that when we provide the basic level, you
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  know, you think about Lancebury Park Bandstand, where we can have live music
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  there. It's kind of a smaller venue, we can do things that are
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  acoustic. Anybody who's going to be bringing in an act there is going to
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  be bringing in their own power, their own lighting, their own sound systems.
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  Anyway, if we provide a space like that that's relatively basic, with
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  this amphitheater, with this, with this bandshell, we could potentially do something
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  that doesn't cost an exorbitant amount of money. You know, show me the
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  lowest cost option, and let's see what kind of a space we can provide
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  because I will tell you, as somebody who works in the arts community,
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  you can give artists very very little and they will return a whole lot for
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  you. It doesn't take a lot of investment in order for it to be
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  and around into something magical that can make an incredible impact in the community.
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  Well, I gotta agree with you on all of those points. And I
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  do have to say one thing. When I'm looking here at the potential challenges,
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  I'm so glad that they didn't list parking. They did not. It's
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  not even there. It's not even like that's being deployed. Is the reason
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  it can't be done. So, I mean, one obstacle overcome. It's
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  literally right next to a parking lot. Also, I really, you know,
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  I want people to imagine, like I don't want to get too dreamy
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  about it, but we just put bright lights there. We have this phenomenal
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  event happening. Imagine the ability to do bright lights and then see a great
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  band or to do, you know, to have entertainment there in this space,
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  just adjacent to that festival, I think would be amazing. Imagine that,
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  you know, the beautiful summertime when you go for a walk in Jackson
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  Park and it's phenomenal, and the flowers are gorgeous, and the air is
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  sweet, and there's music also in that park. I mean, it's a
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  whole reason and the motivation behind the Jazz in the Park series, and I
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  would love to be able to see the city capitalize on that and continue growing
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  that music. In the summer there during bright lights, I could see a
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  dance group doing a nutcracker type thing on stage, and people could wander over
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  with hot chocolates and enjoy the snow as it's coming down under a moonlit sky
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  and bright lights. It's gorgeous and something to look towards and fingers crossed.
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  Save the bandshell the message. Kristen Ciappis is the co owner of Just Cake
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  Productions, which puts on Jazz in the Park, as well as a co
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  host with me on Rose City Politics. Kristin, thank you so much for
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  joining me. Thank you so much, guy,