Decibel levels and music times for Stampede music festivals have been changed for this year, and one of the biggest venues said the changes were done without consultation.

A June 17 memo sent out to city councillors from Ryan Pleckaitis, Chief of Community Standards for the City of Calgary, and obtained by LiveWire Calgary, notes the adjusted times and noise levels for summer outdoor concerts.

Now, on weeknights, concerts must end at midnight, with cool-down music allowed until 12:30 a.m. Weekend concert times have not been changed.

Noise and bass levels have been reduced before midnight from 75 dBA (noise) / 85 dBC (bass) to 70 dBA / 80 dBC, and after midnight (weekends) from 65 dBA / 85 dBC to 60 dBA / 80 dBC, according to the memo.

“These adjustments are intended to balance a safe, vibrant Stampede experience with reduced impacts on surrounding residents,” read the memo from Chief Pleckaitis.

“While these events provide economic and cultural benefits, they also create public safety and quality-of-life pressures in the downtown core.”

There are three bigger events – the Cowboys Music Festival, Badland Music Festival and Wild Horse Music Festival – that will be most impacted. Pleckaitis later said that of the 225 noise-related complaints made in 2025, 125 were specific to the Cowboys Music Festival on the west end of downtown Calgary.

The community complaints have come after the popular Stampede-time music festival moved from its venue adjacent to the Stampede grounds out to the site of the former Millennium Park, next to Mewata Armoury.

The City of Calgary entered into a deal for Cowboys Park that has been under considerable scrutiny in recent weeks. Councillors and community members are looking for more transparency around the deal, and how much it’s costing taxpayers.

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that those conversations are ongoing.

“Certainly, I’m not a fan of what the previous mayor and council had agreed to, not just on the arrangement with Penny Lane on Cowboys Park, but some other sponsorship agreements, as well as private public partnerships,” Mayor Farkas said.

“That said, I’m fully committed to adhering to the terms of the agreement. It’s really important for us to protect taxpayers and not for us to necessarily expose ourselves to unneeded liability.”

Changes made to address community concerns: Pleckaitis

After consultation with the community, Pleckaitis said they decided to move ahead with the changes. They were enabled by the Community Standards Bylaw, through the noise exemption permit to make the administrative change.

“We also had complaints of social disorder, public urination, excessive intoxication throughout the week. So, those are some of the factors that went into our decision this year,” he said.

“We made the decision that we needed to do something this year, and so what we did is we looked at those impacts, and we reduced the noise or the concerts to midnight this year, and allowing outdoor speaker use it as a cool-down period to allow for a safe and orderly exit of patrons.”

Penny Lane Entertainment (PLE), operator of the Cowboys Music Festival isn’t happy with the City of Calgary’s decision, saying in a letter to councillors, also obtained by LiveWire Calgary, that this was done without consultation.

“The proposed change to the bylaw exemption for 2026 will prevent us from delivering and operating a world-class event,” read the letter from Paul Vickers, founding partner of PLE.

“If the bylaw requirements remain unchanged, our festival, and likely others across the city, will be forced to reduce hundreds of staff who, have already been hired and [sic], are expecting to start work in two weeks.”

Vickers also outlined public safety concerns he has with thousands of people emptying on to Calgary streets at the same time at the end of the night. He also said that these kinds of changes to the noise bylaw could impact Calgary’s reputation as a premier destination for world-class music entertainment.

“Artists with sold-out shows at downtown tents may cancel due to the last-minute proposed changes, driven by perceived or actual negative impacts on both the artist’ [sic] show and fan experience, as well as altered set times,” Vickers wrote.

Vickers concluded that the changes could result in last-minute cancellations for both premier acts and local ones, creating a long-term ripple effect on the local entertainment industry.

‘Done on a whim’: Coun. Kim Tyers

Chief Pleckaitis said that there was consultation done with potential affected groups. There was a formal letter sent out in February, and then he said they have been meeting with Cowboys for “many, many months now.”

“In May, we started discussing the tweaks to the decibel limits and the bass limits, and in May we also provided them with an email, which laid out what those requirements were, and that was then reflected on the official noise exemption permit that they would have received earlier this week,” he said.

Ward 1 Coun. Kim Tyers said she felt as though this was a drastic change to come just a couple of weeks before the start of the Calgary Stampede.

“Sounds like it was just done on a whim by somebody who thought things were too loud, so they would reduce it by a few decibels, but what they haven’t realized is this is going to affect people’s jobs. They’re going to have to fire people. It’s going to affect their reputation in the music industry,” she said.

“We’re having some really big names coming to Calgary to perform, and it seems like administration doesn’t understand like the economic value that this brings to our city.”

While she acknowledged some of the resident concerns around noise and public safety, it was the City of Calgary who negotiated the deal to move the festival into Millennium Park.

“If you’re going to make an agreement with the city and with an organization, you should adhere to it and make it easy for them to do business,” Tyers said.

“For them to pull this at the last minute — it’s an embarrassment.”

The Calgary Stampede runs from July 3 to 12, 2026.