Lethbridge’s arts community can’t wait  for Arts Days, Sept. 30-Oct. 2 — a three-day long annual celebration of Lethbridge’s arts scene taking place all over downtown.
“This is pretty much our big event of the year for the Allied Arts Council. We focus all of our energy,” said Ashley Markus, the Allied Arts Council’s director of communications.
“We have so many artists doing amazing works, so this is a way to get everyone involved.”
Arts Days is part of a bigger provincial event, which is in turn part of a national event celebrating the arts.

Word on the street is it’s a free festival that celebrates the joy of the written word. And with 45 authors, 16 music acts, four dance performances, 10 food vendors and two panel group discussions all gathering downtown on Sept. 25, it appears the Word On The Street Festival will deliver on its promise.
It’s a huge event for Lethbridge, as the city joins bigger centres such as Vancouver and Toronto which have been holding Word On The Street festivals for the past 20 years.
“We’re joining much larger centres like Halifax and Vancouver. Ours is the first festival to be granted a licence in two years,” said Christina Wilson, associated director of public service for the Lethbridge Public Library.
“It started 20 years ago in Toronto as a national book and magazine fair, but it’s changed over the years. So for us it’s big,” she continued
There are plans to make the festival an annual event, she added.
The street will be blocked off 5 Avenue South to 8 Street South with events happening all over and around the block, including the library parking lot, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“Just follow the big red dog, Clifford,” said Colette Acheson, one of the organizers.

For a musical group that put out its own brand of hot sauce, hearing that Hollerado wanted to meet the mayor of every tour spot wasn’t all that surprising.
Until it turned out they were only kidding.
“It started as a joke really,” said Dean Baxter, bassist of the Manotick, Ont.-based rock band.
Hollerado plays Average Joe’s on Sept. 19 with Wildlife and Young Rivals.
News of the Meet the Mayor tour went out and to the band’s surprise, about a dozen mayors came forward. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenski was the first to jump on board for a meeting.

There has been a lot of, well, “whispering” about what is going on with the former Tongue N Groove location at 518 5 St. S., a popular downtown nightspot that closed unexpectedly a few weeks ago due to a change in ownership.
To answer that question and document the transition from bar to restaurant, new owner Len Bowcott is creating his own reality series around what he calls “the chaos.”
Bowcott is a web designer who owns, among other things, a video-based website called plutocrazy.com that features local entertainment and local people.
He bought the restaurant from owner Joseph Eufemia because he wanted to create a web series based on local musicians playing before a panel of music industry experts and needed a venue with a large stage in which to film it. He’s still planning on that, but in the meantime, he found a new angle — the transformation itself.