By Cheryl Jahn

Knox Bell Music Venue study underway

Feb 25, 2022 | 3:27 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Some work has been undertaken in what has historically been called the Knox United Church. The goal is to transform the building into a performance venue. And the proponents of that goal recently received just over $20,000 in funding from four sources to that end.

“It was absolutely a grant-writing thing in partnership with the Community Arts Council,” explains Rev. Dr. Bob Fillier, Lead Minister of the Trinity United Church in Prince George. “Some funding from Heritage Canada, some funding from the Community Foundation, funding from Downtown Prince George, local businesses as well as some funding from the United Church of Canada.”

There has been a move for more than a year to create an arts hub in the downtown, with the Community Arts Council and all its tenants from Studio 2880 on 15th Avenue to the location of the current Farmers Market on Third Avenue. The need for a mid-sized music and event venue was identified as a high priority by the arts community. The Trinity United Downtown could be part of that arts precinct and the funding is targeted to assess if it will work as a performance venue.

“We’re doing a complete study on the feasibility of the Knox Church being turned into a full-time performance venue,” says Sean Farrell, CEO of the Community Arts Council. “We’re going to be looking at design, construction, mechanical, audience engagement, business model planning, what the opportunities are for programming. We’re going to come up with a comprehensive detailed plan for how this is going to be a top-notch, full-time performance space.”

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The Trinity United Downtown Campus will be one of the venues for Cold Snap this year and that will serve as a potential source of information. But the audiences will not be the sole source of that information.

“So one of the goals of the feasibility study is really saying to the performers ‘What do you need here?’ Not what we think you need and making sure those are the foundational infrastructure pieces that we put in place. So that performers really enjoy coming to perform here.”

One of the funding sources is Downtown Prince George. So it begs the question: What’s in it for Downtown Prince George?

“I think for them it’s having a high-quality performance venue that’s available for use throughout the week and it’s in the downtown that generates traffic,” says Fillier. “Come to a show, go hit up Nancy O’s afterward. Go for a beverage down at Crossroads and then come to a show. But it brings people downtown and it keeps people downtown.

The study is expected to be released sometime in Spring.

by Cheryl Jahn

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