Kick off your Thanksgiving celebration at Colours of Fall concert

Kick-start your Thanksgiving weekend with some live music and autumnal crafts under the vivid canopy of Town Park this Thursday, October 6, at the annual Colours of Fall concert.

Hosted each fall by the Town of Aurora, the Colours of Fall event is a chance to meet your neighbours, carve some free pumpkins, enjoy freshly-roasted corn and crisp apples – and, this year, while enjoying the sounds of Off the Rock: A Tribute to Great Big Sea.

Newly formed as Off the Rock, the band itself isn't new. Local music lovers who visited Machell's Alley this summer, for instance, might have received an appetizer of their sounds as they performed as the Flailing Shillelaghs.

Complimentary pumpkins and carving tools will be available for families to dazzle with their creativity, and while the corn and the apples are free as well, donations of non-perishable items to the Aurora Food Pantry are encouraged.

This will be the first restriction-free Colours of Fall event since the start of the global pandemic, and organizers are eager for a return to form.

“We didn't do the corn roast last year, so we're able to bring that back,” says Shelley Ware, Special Events Coordinator for the Town of Aurora. “Pumpkin carving was also more remote [last year] because we were more restricted. We just want families to come together.

“Before the pandemic, this event was all about community, seeing people connect outside of a rectangle and seeing the connections and memories that are made at these events [is what it's all about]. The rectangles (which were painted on the grass so families could enjoy the event and stay in their own bubbles) reduced that, although I am grateful for the activations we did, it's about seeing the community connect organically – on top of the fantastic music.

“This is the final, final outdoor concert in Town Park for the year, the last one after you get to come out here for music all summer, and it's a must attend event. Come out, check out the leaves, sit back in Town Park. If you have never come to a concert here, why not? Make this your first one and if you have been faithfully coming then you know why you need to return. It's going to be a Hallmark kind of evening.”

For more information about this year's Colours of Fall concert, which runs from 6.30 – 8.30 p.m., visit aurora.ca/fallconcert.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter