While the City of Thunder Bay has events for children and adults throughout the summer, there aren’t always opportunities for the youth.
The answer to that is the Superior Youth Festival 2010 at Marina Park this Thursday.
From 6 to 10 p.m. the main stage will be packed with entertainment including five local bands and headliners These Kids Wear Crowns from Chilliwack, B.C.
“The city specifically has a lot of outdoor festivals and stuff catered to older demographics so what we really wanted to do was promote fact we have programming such as Youth Zone, Playground and everything else and to create an event that focuses on them specifically,” said festival coordinator Jean-Paul De Roover.
“We do have Summer in the Parks and the Teddy Bears Picnic; those are the two extremes of the age spectrum, so we wanted to have something strictly for the youth.”
Along with These Kids Wear Crowns, the lineup for the fourth annual event includes local acts Artesian Well, the Other Colour, Vega, the Auditor General and Webster Death.
The evening will also see performances from the Cambrian Players improv group, High School Idol contestant Melissa Vondrasek and illusionist Tyler Biloski among others.
Concessions, community group booths and digital caricatures will also be set up at the festival along with inflatable jousting and sumo suit wrestling in a bouncy castle from Fun Factor.
Last year the Superior Youth Festival drew about 1,500 people to the park and De Roover said this year they’re changing the start time of the event to 6 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.
“We’re going to pack the entertainment in for that four hours,” he said.
The festival also aims to promote youth culture in the community and music is a big part of that culture, said De Roover.
“For teens, music is a really strong part of their being and their life,” he said.
Admission is free.
