Staging an International Rock Festival in Alberta: A Documentary Reconstruction of Edmonton’s Rock Cirkus by Brock Silversides Abstract This paper, delivered in a shortened form at the CAML Conference in Calgary in June 2016, details the lead up to and production of the Edmonton Rock Cirkus in August 1979. It was the largest outdoor rock festival held in the Alberta capital up to that time, and was successfully staged in Commonwealth Stadium with a combination of top name international and Canadian acts, such as Peter Frampton, Heart, Streetheart, and Trooper. Using a combination of archival documents (primarily from the Martin Melhuish Fonds, held by Media Commons at the University of Toronto), contemporary press accounts, and reminiscences by organizers and performers, the groundbreaking festival's background, organization, logistics, economics, and physical production are reconstructed and discussed. Poster for Edmonton Summer Rock Cirkus, August 1979 Courtesy of City of Edmonton Archives, EAP-53-1 __________________________ Brock Silversides (
[email protected]) is Director of the University of Toronto Media Commons. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. CAML REVIEW / REVUE DE L’ACBM 45, NO. 1 (APRIL / AVRIL 2017) PAGE 9 The Partners On August 26, 1979, Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium played host to that city’s first large-scale international rock festival. Christened “The Summer Rock Cirkus,” it looms large in the memories of many Alberta music fans who came of age in that decade. The festival was organized, produced, and promoted by Lumado Enterprises Ltd. of Westmount, Quebec in conjunction with radio station K-97.