naming and sponsorship<\/a> deal with the city is a 10-year agreement.<\/p>\nLISTEN | How Cowboys Park evolved after its name changed:<\/p>\n
Farkas said he and the rest of council have seen the city’s deal with Penny Lane, but are bound to such strict confidentiality that they cannot even share the agreement with their staff to assess it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat, to me, is a red flag,\u201d said Farkas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to have as much transparency as possible in terms of what was agreed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he said he understands the city is looking for more revenue sources, Farkas said he plans to push harder for more transparent partnerships in the future.<\/p>\n
Penny Lane did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News prior to publication.<\/p>\n
Skaters still barred from access<\/p>\n
Cowboys Park is also home to Canada’s largest outdoor skatepark, but local skateboarders were left out in the cold for much of last summer.<\/p>\n
When setup began for last year’s festival, skateboarders were fenced out and blocked from accessing much of the park for most of June and July last year. But this year, the city said it is not closing the skatepark for as long, and intends to reopen it as quickly as possible after the festival ends.<\/p>\n
![\"Crews](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/575543459db54a327dc060ed21dbd149.jpeg\"\/)
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Crews installed scaffolding in some of Cowboys Park’s skatepark bowls ahead of the Cowboys Music Festival last summer. (Monty Kruger\/CBC)<\/p>\n
During this year’s festival, the city said the skatepark’s beginner bowl will remain open, with partial access to the advanced bowls.<\/p>\n
Jasper Westbury, who works at Ninetimes Skate Shop nearby, said it was frustrating for skateboarders to lose access to the park last summer, especially given that due to Calgary\u2019s winters, there\u2019s only a limited amount of time each year to use the outdoor space.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we\u2019d like to just skate the park, but also we know that in this city it\u2019s a broken record, Stampede gets what Stampede wants,\u201d said Westbury.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming to terms with the new reality that the biggest skatepark in the city is going to be closed for arguably the most prime time. It\u2019s the middle of the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other options are not as central, not as accessible and much smaller, Westbury said. He pointed to Sunnyside Skatepark, which was over capacity for weeks last summer while Cowboys Park fenced out skaters.<\/p>\n
Westbury said the city could better communicate directly with skateboarders about planned park closures. He added he’d like to see the park restored, each year, to the condition it was in prior to the festival starting, after last year’s Stampede left the ground of the park “filthy.”<\/p>\n
This year, temporary skate bowl closures are scheduled to begin in mid-June.<\/p>\n
Cowboys accounted for most Stampede noise complaints<\/p>\n
During last year’s Stampede, most noise-related service requests were concentrated at Cowboys’ venue, with 126 total, the city confirmed. The city noted the figure included repeat calls.<\/p>\n
The city added the three confirmed noise violations at last year’s Stampede were at the Cowboys and Badlands music festivals. In each case, the venues complied after a verbal warning, the city said.<\/p>\n
City staff said earlier this year noise exemptions at the Calgary Stampede will end at midnight most nights, and at 1:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday, compared to a 2 a.m. deadline last year.<\/p>\n
The city also said it will monitor Cowboys Park through increased and extended patrols this year, and regular sound checks to monitor noise, crowd control and public safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a month before the Cowboys Music Festival kicks off during the Calgary Stampede, the city\u2019s mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,15809,33286,1812,33289,12440,33288,17332,33287],"class_list":["post-86273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-stampede","tag-cowboys-park","tag-jeromy-farkas","tag-millennium-park","tag-music-festival","tag-penny-lane-entertainment","tag-ryan-mcleod","tag-the-cowboys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cowboys](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/72e267d96d0e656f4f21ad0074800aae.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n