🙄 Danielle Smith and Councillor Kim Tyers are leading a last ditch attempt to rollback the city’s new Stampede noise bylaw improvements

Former UCP staffer-turned city councillor Kim Tyers and Premier Danielle Smith are leading a last ditch attempt to roll back sensible improvements to the city’s Stampede noise bylaw exemption that better balance the interests of Stampede beer tent operators with the communities where they operate for 11 consecutive days each year. This may come as a surprise to anyone who happened to read regular UCP-booster Rick Bell’s July 2025 published tirade over "monster tent mayhem” based on the experience living eight blocks from a Stampede tent.

“City hall has to do something. Put real conditions on a monster tent’s development permit. Put in rules the tents must follow. Lay down the law. Bring the noise down.” 

-Rick Bell (July 2025)

💥 Cowboys tent accounted for most Stampede noise complaints in 2025

According to the city, the Cowboys stampede tent accounted for most of the noise-related complaints in 2025. Local residents also complained about “public urination” and social disorder around the venue. The Cowboys Stampede tent was relocated far from the Stampede grounds to Millenium Park (surrounded by tens of thousands of homes) in 2025 as part of a secretive 10-year deal approved by the previous city council without any prior public consultation. The deal included the renaming of Millenium Park to “Cowboys Park”, as well as the paving over 70% of the park’s greenspace, the removal of dozens of trees, and the closure of most of the skatepark to the public for six weeks last summer to accommodate the Cowboys event.

⚖️ The city has made sensible changes to the Stampede noise bylaw exemption

In response to the outpouring of public complaints in 2025, the city has made a couple of incremental improvements to the Stampede noise exemptions including ending outdoor concerts at midnight on weekday nights and lowering overall sound level limits. For context, outside of the Stampede special exemption period, Calgary’s noise bylaws prohibit most noise past 10PM.

⏰ Calgary’s revised Stampede-period noise bylaw exemption hours are still the latest of the major outdoor urban music festivals on the continent

According to a letter to city council from the Cowboys tent operators, the weekday midnight noise curfew “will prevent us from delivering and operating a world-class event.” However, a fact check of this claim reveals that even the City of Calgary’s new Stampede-period noise bylaw exemptions are still the latest of the largest outdoor urban music festivals on the continent (permitting music as late as 1:30AM on weekends). Even the Montreal Jazz Festival in downtown Montreal, which hosts nearly ten times more attendees, wraps up its outdoor concerts at midnight every night.

🤓 By the numbers: Comparison of nightly music curfews between Cowboys tent and highest attendance outdoor urban music festivals in North America

💡Cowboys could start earlier like most other outdoor music festivals

While most of the above major music festivals start around noon daily, according to the Cowboys stampede tent website their venue does not open until 5PM or 6PM most days. If the Cowboys tent operators are concerned about their claimed impacts of Calgary’s weekday midnight noise limit to their music programming they could consider adopting earlier concert start times more in line with the top outdoor music festivals on the continent.

🚨TAKE ACTION: Tell city council to respect the tens of thousands of residents living in and around the downtown and uphold the sensible new Stampede noise protections