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GP Youth Fest launch event (Image Credit: GP Youth Fest social media page)
By Tanner Smith
Community

New youth-focused festival coming to Grande Prairie

Apr 7, 2026 | 6:01 AM

A new event, GP Youth Fest, is set to take over Muskoseepi Park at the end of June.

High school senior and GP Youth Fest founder and Director EJ Igao says he was inspired to create this event as he was seeing a common theme in his “various leadership roles within schools and the City,” which was that youth want to be more “united, collaborative, engaged, and have fun.”

With that, Igao says he hears people call Grande Prairie a “boring place” and leave for work or education and not return for that reason, something he disagrees with.

Now, Igao wants to use this platform to spread information about local programs for youth and encourage everyone to make new connections.

“GP YouthFest is taking place on June 25th at Muskoseepi Park. The main attraction of it is a regional youth talent show, which will give youth an opportunity to showcase their skills, showcase their talent, and also just give them the chance to start building their roots here.”

During the day, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, swimming at the Aquatera Outdoor Pool, lawn games and other activities will be taking place, alongside educational booths highlighting youth opportunities and guest speakers talking about their own paths.

Igao says a big portion of the event will be the educational aspect, “so youth are exposed to the vast amounts of potential opportunity and actual fun that exists here in the Peace Region, because I think that one of the biggest things is just the youth are not aware of what actually happens, or youth are not aware about what exists out there in the region, which is kind of what pushes them to go away.”

“At least with this, having kind of a centralized place to tell youth about all the things that happen here and what exists here would be a great opportunity to encourage them to stay here.”

With a common goal of retaining Peace Region youth to grow up and work in the area, Igao has reached out to both NWP and the City of Grande Prairie to collaborate on this project; “We did get $4,500 from the City with their festival funding that closed last January. (2024) Even before that, I’ve been talking with most of the city councillors, and they’ve all really shown their support, and they’ve all expressed their support in this initiative.”

More details on the event are expected closer to the time of, but Igao says admission will be free for those 12-18, with a fee for anyone outside of that demographic, but that has yet to be decided on.

Anyone wanting more information or to stay up to date on GP Youth Fest announcements can visit their social media page.

by Tanner Smith