The Fort

Since I began playing shows in Calgary almost nearly 5 years ago, I've seen many venues close their doors to either the public or at least to the bands. I'm probably just old enough to remember playing my first show ever as a skinny young punk at the legendary Crescent Heights Community Center and having an awesome venue like that for all age shows. Last year was the saddest time for the community when The New Black Center for the Performing Arts finally closed it's doors for good. I remember going to many shows there in a short period of time. For the first year and a half in the city. I saw incredible bands there that just faded away and also bands that bloomed into something way bigger. A good example of that was catching Today I Caught the Plague play to maybe 25 kids and the bands that they had played with. For you that don't know they are a band formed in 2005 in Ottawa, Ontario who toured for countless years until they became The Kindred in 2013, who have played with many large acts like Between the Buried and Me, Misery Signals, Protest the Hero and Scale the Summit. With that void in the community it turned to only 18+ shows at bars. It takes away from the nurturing and growth of the young musicians when they need it the most. Now what is happening is that a group of individuals who are passionate about the fact there is a void and want to do something about it. Thus comes the idea of The Fort. This is just in the begging stages and what they want to do is with the help of crowd funding, They want to give the city a venue. With money donated they plan on finding a building, the renovations they will need, the sound equipment and the permits/licenses required to run the venue properly. So here it is they are calling for your help and if you want to check more out about it yourself follow this link here and check it out for yourself.


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