Supercrawl will host concerts on top of downtown Hamilton parking garage

Hamilton’s biggest arts and music festival has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Supercrawl organizers have found a way to host a series of concerts while allowing people to physically distance.

Between Sept. 25 and 27, five concerts will be held on top of the York Boulevard parkade, with room for 100 ticket-holders to attend.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger announced that Supercrawl Productions had been selected as the third-party operator for the rooftop venue during Tuesday’s meeting of the mayor’s economic recovery task force.

“Hopefully the rain holds off and we can get some great music happening and livening our downtown facilities,” said Eisenberger.

It’s an idea that Tim Potocic, festival director and co-owner of Sonic Unyon, had proposed in the past, but wasn’t taken up by the city until it was clear that there would need to be innovative solutions to hold live performances while limits on social gatherings remain in place.

The September shows will be much smaller than the enormous concerts that Potocic had initially envisioned, but he said he hopes people feel safe enough with the set-up they’ll be building.

“The entire roof of the parking garage is quite massive,” said Potocic, “and we’re just using the space we need to officially socially distance 100 people and the stage and the artists from the audience. But it’ll actually feel relatively intimate, considering all of the criteria we have to follow to do the show.”

Exclusive Supercrawl-branded masks will be included with the ticket price and will be provided to anyone who needs a mask.

Potocic said they hadn’t been planning to announce the shows until next week so details are still being finalized, but he anticipates tickets will sell quite quickly, based on the artists they’ve lined up to perform.

“We’re really, really excited — the artists that we have booked for the rooftop … they’re artists that will sell, each of them, probably closer to 1,000 tickets if they were actually to do a show in Hamilton.”

Those five shows aren’t the end of what Supercrawl has planned, either. Potocic said they’re planning to hold a regular concert series on top of the parking garage, with shows being held from October to March.

There are also plans for some art installations in the area of James Street North, as well as potentially fashion and drag shows, among other things — many of which will be free to the public. Potocic said more details about those future events will be announced in the coming weeks.

“We’re trying to mix it up, we’re trying to get money into the hands as many different types of artists as we possibly can.”

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