Since Jill Primeau moved to Pelham three years ago, she has often found herself driving past Old Pelham Town Hall on her daily trips around town.
“It’s so beautiful, just the architecture. It's kind of almost was speaking to me,” Primeau said. And that got her thinking.
Primeau first got involved in community events in Pelham volunteering for Summerfest back in 2023, to organize a jam contest at that year’s festival.
Her latest venture, though, is a jam of a different sort. Utilizing her experience from her days working as an artist liaison at Massey Hall in Toronto, as well as her production duties for the Juno Awards to celebrate achievements in Canadian music, she is bringing a new concert series to Canboro Road via her company, Jill Primeau Productions. She is working with Tim Potocic, of Hamilton’s Sonic Unyon, a record label and events company, which recently finished up the annual Supercrawl, a three-day festival in the Hammer’s James Street corridor. The company has also produced events for the Juno Awards and for the CFL’s Grey Cup championship.
The Pelham series kicks off on Sept. 29 with a show by Terra Lightfoot. This will be followed by a show each month, starting with The Sadies (Oct. 26), Spencer Burton (Nov. 16), and Hawksley Workman (Dec. 14). Tickets for all shows are $39.99 plus taxes and fees and can be purchased online at tixr.com. Doors open at 7 p.m. for all shows.
Primeau said word of the series is spreading and people are looking forward to it.
“There's lots of people commenting about how excited they are for the for it to happen,” she said. “And I'm definitely having my ear to the ground, talking with people when I'm out. It's important to make sure that the community is invested.”
Primeau was very much aware of an idea put forward by Ward 1 Councillor Wayne Olson, who is campaigning to see the hall repurposed as an arts hub.
“He reached out to me and called me just about different ideas,” Primeau said. “And one of them was the hall. Like, you know, if you know, he really wants to put more programming in there, and more stuff happening on a regular basis.”
And as it turns out, the pair are not strangers. Olson has known Primeau’s family for decades and is a longtime friend of Jill’s godfather, Roger Wilkinson.
Olson, who first spoke to PelhamToday in May about the arts hub idea, has spoken with Primeau on several occasions since she moved to town.
And now that Primeau and Potocic are moving forward with the concert series, Olson is excited.
“We live in a very talented and creative community, and I am delighted to see this use for the hall,” he said. “I am familiar with each the artists and I am looking forward to seeing them up close in a very familiar setting.”
But its more than a setting for Potocic. Any time when an event is being planned for a new venue there can be challenges, he said.
“Anytime it's a new thing you have, you've got bumps in the road,” he said. “(For Sonic Unyon) you have to work through the logistics of us working with Jill, us working within in a new city, all those types of things.”
But all events start somewhere, he said. Using the example of Supercrawl, he said practice not only makes perfect, but it also makes for better running events.
“It is a ton of work, and we work on it all year, and it is a massive event, but we're like turnkey now when it comes to the logistics of the event.”
He also thinks the series could be the start of something and showcase what could be a new arts venue for Pelham.
“I would imagine that this concert series, it will evolve,” he said. “But what it evolves into will be determined by how it goes this year, and what we want to do moving forward.”
Primeau, meanwhile, has been working to find out all she can about the building.
“I've been diving in a bit more on when it was built, and the background of it, and I found some cool photos and stuff, too,” she said. “I plan to share that on our social platform so people can learn about the hall as well.”
More information on the concert series can be found on Facebook and Instagram.
