This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Rockies International Rodeo and Music Festival. As ever, the folks at ARGRA will amaze us with this annual event – for this short preview, I spoke with

ARGRA Communications Director, Drew Davidson, mostly about the music festival. It turns out adding the musical component to the rodeo was a smart move – they’ve gotten feedback that a large number of people are drawn to the event because of the musical acts. To better highlight this, they’re changing up the layout of the rodeo grounds, "...so hopefully more people will enjoy and more people will be able to see who’s onstage."

As for the performers returning to the CRIR rodeo and music festival, look for the following: Backyard Betties, Amy Hef, Hashmagandy, Alison Demeter, Kyemera, Connor James, Lauren Mayell, Netty Mac, Jasmine Whenham and David J. Taylor.

The organisers aren’t sitting still though – they’ve brought in the following new acts for 2013:

Rebecca Lappa, Tanner James, Minerva, Smoking Aces, T. Buckley, Joelle, Paije Hartwick, Wildflower, and Jason Hastie. More acts may be confirmed as we approach the end of June.

The festival schedule starts off on Friday with the women – expect to see an array of female soloists, groups and acts featuring female vocals. Saturday is an eclectic mix of pop and rock, and Sunday ends the festival with a day dedicated to local country artists.

"There is also a jam session on stage Saturday (10am until noon). All the artists are invited to show up – and whoever shows up, be it guitarist or lead singer will just get onstage." This is different than other years where there have been acts setting up after each other. It’ll be a nice little warm up for the day.

As for the Tornado nightclub where the nightly dances are held, we will see a major change, Drew told me. It will occur in what was known as the Lammle’s barn - the large blue building to the right of the fairgrounds entrance. "Strathmore has renovated it so it’s a fully functioning hall. There’s a lot more interior washrooms, there’s a kitchen...cement floor instead of the stable floor. Same square footage as the curling rink, it’s just that it’s closer to everything we’re doing rather than being so far away and having to stretch everything out." In other words, no more hiking out to the back forty for the dances.

The evening dances this year will see "...a firepit like we’ve traditionally had, but we’ll also have artists playing at the firepit...so that’ll be a nice addition because previous years people just sat around and chatted." So if you’re taking a break from the dance, walk around to the north side of the barn, sit by the firepit and hear artists like Hashmagandy jamming away.

With the new location for the dances they were able to condense the midway grounds and make it so there’s more interaction with everyone. This will allows for greater circulation amongst all the vendors, the stage, and the booths at the GayCalgary Magazine Country Carnival. "The Midway is still open in the evening...so if someone’s at the dance and they want to go back and listen to an act on stage that still might be finishing up, they can do that.  Or if they want to go through the red light district – which is being organized this year – they can do that, and there’ll be some food vendors."

Finally, as it is the twentieth anniversary of the rodeo, ARGRA is seeking out any record of past rodeos.  Drew put out a call for "...any photos, any pins or t-shirts or if anyone’s taken any videos...we want to get it all together and then we’ll be putting on a 20th Anniversary Display in the Quonset building." For details on how to send in your memorabilia, email anniversary@argra.org

More details about the whole event will be published in June’s edition of GayCalgary Magazine, yet this doesn’t mean you should wait. Tickets for the 2013 Canadian Rockies International Rodeo and Music Festival are now on sale – go to the ARGRA website for details.