At last, the Black Walnut Acoustic Open Stage will be back at the Mill Courtland Community Centre, 216 Mill Street in Kitchener starting on Friday, February 17, 2023 at 7:30 pm. (The next Date for this event is March 17th.) Doors open and performers’ sign-up starting at 7:15pm.
We know that some people are interested in returning to perform and some people are interested in returning to listen and see the rest of the gang. We also have some volunteers who are willing to return to organize and produce the Open Stage events.
Right now it looks like we won’t be changing much from the way we did things in 2019 except that we won’t plan to have a featured act until we have tried the Open Stage out for the first season. We are concerned that, like every other event or service in the community, we will lose volunteers with little or no advance notice because of health issues. The people that are essential and hardest to recruit are those with the ability to organize, move equipment to and from the Community Center and actually set-up and produce the event. If that sort of thing sounds good to you please contact us and we can discuss how that can happen.
A few things that we are expecting are:
- We will set up tables and chairs, stage with sound and lights and coffee bar just like before, except we will do what we can to allow the attendees to maintain 2m social distancing;
- Masks will not be mandatory, but encouraged;
- To protect the club mics, performers will use removable foam pop filters (windscreens) which they will obtain, install, remove and keep for the next time. We will make these available at no cost to the performers, at least for the first month. ;
- Anyone arriving at the Community Centre who has been recently exposed to or has symptoms of COVID, Flu, RSV or other contagious illness is directed to stay away. AND
- It will be very satisfying to welcome many of our experienced and first-time performers and audience members.
We will also update our Facebook group and email list.