Barkerville Historic Town and Park announced today (May 24) the start of its 2024 main season will be on Saturday June 1st.
“All of our live programming will be up and running that day,” Manager of Public Programming Stewart Cawood said, “our shops and restaurants will be open as well. We’re going to have our stagecoach running and we’re going to be opening up our brand new show here at the Theatre Royal.”
Cawood noted the Theatre Royal Show is a family friendly hour long music and comedy variety show happening everyday at 2 pm.
“People can look forward to having lots of fun and frivolity and some heartwarming bits as well, it’s a wild ride for an hour.”
Cawood said they’ve seen really good turnouts for their Theatre performances ever since they were able to open back up after COVID.
“People have been really chomping at the bit for some live performances so we’ve seen pretty decent houses each Summer. Last year was when we were able to start opening back up again in the Theatre on June first and we were wondering how it would be because typically things are a little slower during that first month because school is still in so families aren’t getting out as much as we would like them to but we still saw pretty decent houses in the theatre each last year, so we’re for the same if not better this year.”
Special Events planned over the season at Barkerville Historic Town & Park include:
The annual Dominion Day celebrations on July First.
The ninth Annual Indigenous People’s Celebrations returns on August 17
The following Saturday, August 24 Barkerville will host the twenty-fourth Annual Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, complete with lion and dragon dances.
The Main Season will conclude September eighth to prepare for Olde-Fashioned Christmas December 14 and 15 with sleigh rides, carolling, photos with Father Christmas and plenty of snow.
“We like to give people both an entertaining and educational slice of history. They’ll learn all about gold mining, how it affected people’s lives, how it affected Indigenous Peoples, and the contributions of the Chinese community here. Many people have said that they feel like they’re travelling back in time and feeling what it was like to live in the 1860’s here in Barkerville,” Cawood said.
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