NSMZ Venue of the year 2022: The Station Arts Centre Co-Operative (Rosthern)

by Scott Roos

photos by Deanna Roos PhotoGraphy

Rockabilly sensation Jake Vaadeland and his band The Sturgeon River Boys played to a capacity crowd at the station this past September.

Nestled roughly at the halfway point between Prince Albert and Saskatoon by way of Highway 11, Rosthern, Saskatchewan generally presents as a quaint, friendly, sleepy little town of about 1600 people. While most people probably have Rosthern on their radar because of the cheap gas, seasonal ice cream shop, or perhaps, by way of scholastics, Rosthern Junior College, if dig a little deeper, within the town limits you'll find one of the its best kept secrets: The Station Arts Centre Co-Operative.

The Station, as most people affectionately refer to it, is a top flight music venue situated in a renovated CN Railway Station. A multi-purpose facility, The Station can serve an art gallery, gathering or meeting space, craft beer and coffee bar, and live music venue. Sometimes they even do all of this at the same time.

From a live music perspective, The Station essentially has two performance areas. If you want the intimacy of a coffee house they can do that with their “Live and Local” stage situated at the front of the venue. But they are also capable of hosting lower mid-level and mid-level artists within their 160 seat theatre space at the back of the venue.

Recently renovated, The Station has only been open since Mid-March. It is indeed a beautiful, inviting and inspiring space that artists should consider reaching out to for future performance opportunities.

“I've never been to (The Station) before but it's gorgeous. What they have there: the facilities are fantastic. Their theatre, their artwork and just the space is super nice,” raved The Local Group's bass player Ethan Peters noted when his band performed there this past May.

"Our role is to be a gathering place where people can come together with arts and culture events. That’s the key. The renovation and all of that stuff is a compliment to it. But the key is just having people getting together around these events and it’s just really really positive,” venue Program Director Nicole Thiessen told NSMZ.