Canada Day celebrations in Kamloops will be going virtual this year.

Community events coordinator Dewi Evans says there will be a livestream on the City of Kamloops website with performances, and says families can follow along for activities like face painting and science experiments.

“This year, as opposed to other years – where people may be familiar with the lineup of three different stages, Music in the Park starting that night and the Art in the Park section – we’ve tried to focus on giving that platform to organizations like Western Canada Theatre, Pride, Kamloops Rivertown Players,” Evans says.

“It’s been about two months in the making now, it’s been a bit of a scramble because these sort of virtual events, they weren’t really around. They’re new sort of ideas and concepts that we’re trying out; it’s not like events down at Riverside Park where we know the best practices, we know what works and what doesn’t. This is a new thing that we’re learning about as we’re going along.”

There’s a list of supplies that people can buy in advance of Canada Day, to be able to follow along with some of the activities that will happen on the livestream. A list of all events and activities and supplies needed can be found here.

The city cancelled the usual Canada Day event in Riverside Park back in April, because of COVID-19.