Summer event series coming to Jack Downing Park, featuring live music, entertainment, and local vendors

Written By Paula Brown

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town of Shelburne will kick off summer weekends with a fun new park event for residents and visitors. 

The Town of Shelburne will host “Six Fridays in the Park” at Jack Downing Park from June 16 to Sept. 1. The special event will include a diverse line-up of music, children's entertainment and community activities. 

“We want to make sure that we're offering the community something that is unique and that will help bring the community together. It's important to have areas where people can meet other people because it helps with isolation,” said Carol Maitland, economic development officer for the Town of Shelburne. “We want it to be successful and to be a template to use moving forward into the future.”

The idea for the ‘Six Fridays in the Park' event came out of the Town of Shelburne's Community Improvement Plan (CIP), which identified 12 moves to improve the community. Number eight of the ‘big moves' was redesigning Jack Downing Park to become the community's ‘living room.' 

In 2022, the town converted the park into a space that could host a wide range of community-based outdoor programming and activities. 

“One of the big purposes of it is to drive visitors and the community to the downtown core and to help support our local businesses. The other is to build community, it's important to offer these sorts of event within the town so people don't have to leave,” Maitland told the Free Press. “We're also trying to start to build a bit of a tourism industry.” 

Each Friday event will feature a different musical line-up, children's entertainment and community activity to help create a memorable experience for residents and visitors. 

The event will also offer a limited number of free booths to businesses to ‘share their wares' with the community. 

The first of the ‘Six Fridays in the Park' will include music by the Jay Kipps Band, a downtown business scavenger hunt, business vendors, and caricatures. 

The community is invited to spend the evening in the park between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and participate in free, family-friendly activities and entertainment. 

The dates for the ‘Six Fridays in the Park' are June 16 (opening day), June 23, July 7, July 14, Aug. 4, and Sept. 1 (final day).