Music will be centre ice at the Nelson and District Community Complex as a local promoter and music lover makes a push to finish a project that was never started.
“When the arena was first built they ran out of money and they never finished what was meant to make the arena a multi-purpose facility,” said Roger Carruthers of Rockopolis Promotions. “It is a hockey and sports facility, which is great and fills that need in Nelson, but as a promoter I was really hoping the arena would be a place to host a concert.”
Carruthers along with Revolution Audio and the Community Complex are getting the community involved in the fundraising to finish the arena by organizing a concert series appropriately named Fixing up the NDCC arena.
The series was scheduled to launch with a concert by Scottish rockers Nazareth and the Headpins.
Many people had approached Carruthers before he launched in to the concert series asking why the arena wasn’t finished.
“The multi-purpose turned into single purpose and now people are coming up to me and I’m hearing that people are concerned the arena isn’t finished, and are wondering why we aren’t getting world class shows here,” he said. “I decided to step up to the plate after so many years and I figured I would go do this. It so happened the next week I was at an antique market in Nelson and Mayor John Dooley saw me there and he asked if I was still doing concerts and mentioned the last Nazareth show in town. He said it was a great concert and that it brought a lot of people to town.”
Carruthers is working with a number of local lighting and sound proofing experts to finish the facility.
“I was working with Gary Waldie, who is the light man for acts like the Black Eyed Peas, who works here in town,” he said. “We looked at how we could do the lighting rigging and how we could hydraulic all the lighting stages into the roof like they do in the bigger venues in Canada.”
As the money is raised to finish the arena they will begin working on the projects needed to finish the upgrades.
Carruthers said the community has already rallied around the concert series, which in addition to Nazareth includes Pink Floyd cover band Pigs
Tickets for Pigs on Saturday, October 13 are available at Phoenix Computers.
Nazareth ticket holders can exchange their tickets to see Pigs or are able to get a full refund on November 1 at Phoenix Computers.