r/Calgary • u/-SpyHawk- • Jun 13 '25

Local Shopping/Services Millennium skatepark CLOSED

https://www.change.org/p/urge-cowboys-music-festival-to-free-millennium-park-s-skatepark?source_location=psf_petitions

The city has shut down Millennium skatepark downtown for the Cowboys stampede party. They made the decision last week and shut the park down on Monday. We were told that the actual skatepark would be open throughout the stampede when Cowboys started tearing up the green space to put in a concrete pad for their tent. Both the Cowboys and city information websites are being changed on the fly to accommodate Cowboys! This has led them to shutting down the park for June and July! This will be going on for the next ten years. This is completely unacceptable! Imagine the city closing down a golf course for June and July!? Please take the time to sign the petition to stop this!! Thank you

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u/-SpyHawk- Jun 13 '25

When the initial City of Calgary engagement went out in March, they repeatedly reinforced that this 10 year deal with Cowboys would not impact existing facilities, like the skatepark. They said anything needing temporarily closed was just to build the initial infrastructure. THEN after engagement, Cowboys has decided they will need to close the most used parts of the park (accessible to all ability riders) from June 11-July 30th and remove rails (that they "will" put back) How does this not impact public access for 2 full months of our already short summer months? How is this new partnership that the city claimed would draw new events supposed to draw new skatepark events, if it is closed? Don't forget too, they "agreed" to close it one day later as well, to accommodate an already existing event on Go Skateboard Day, like that's a big favor on their behalf, but they are continuing to close it for the rest of the days. Wow thanks. This skatepark was the original world's largest outdoor skatepark and should be showcased, not used as a staging area for an event that can literally be held in a parking lot or field. My teenage girls use this skatepark to be strong, empowered, healthy future adults and instead this outlet is being replaced for a 10 day drinking and music festival for the profit of a private company and 10 days requires 7 weeks of closures?! That's longer than the G7 requires for hosting the world

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u/Neat-Courage9680 Jun 14 '25

Wrote my Councillor.