Downtown Kingston

Upcoming Event: Open Farms Harvest

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

I often talk about how lucky Kingstonians are to have such an incredible farm-to-table experience within arm’s reach. So many of our local restaurants support our local farmers and together they create incredible food experiences! What better way to celebrate these delicious collaborations than the upcoming Open Farms Harvest event on Oct 2, 1:00pm-4:30pm. It is being held inside City Hall as well as at Springer Market Square, “Local chefs will be preparing local food grown from within rural Kingston and the surrounding Frontenac County to experience and learn where every ingredient on your plate comes from. There will also be craft beer from local breweries, wine tastings from Prince Edward County and Niagara wineries, as well as education seminars, chef demonstrations, and the chance to hear firsthand from farmers about the food they produce.”

Continue reading →

Keep up with Kingston Turns 7! 7 Reasons “Kingston Isn’t Boring Anymore”

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

This month marks the 7 year anniversary since I moved back to Kingston and began this blog. I can’t believe how time flies! In the last seven years, I’ve had three jobs in this city, we’ve grown our family by two and I’ve started a Masters program to name just a few things. In that time, this blog has put me in touch with so many incredible people, local businesses and unique opportunities.

Although it’s always been a side project, it has enriched our lives in more ways than I can count. The point of starting the blog was to convince myself that Kingston is a happening place and far from the sleepy town I remembered and fled from as a young adult. I hoped that sharing the positive and diving into our community would give me a new appreciation for its beauty. And it worked! I only share positive experiences and specifically focus on small, local business and as a result I attract positive energy. Bonus: I’m often given a heads up on many of the fun things happening around town. This community is so supportive and if you put yourself out there, it’s very easy to find your people. For those of you who have been following along, thank you so much for reading and sharing my content! I appreciate you.

Local artist and founder of collective, ForWorld Studios, Francisco Corbett, has coined this phrase “Kingston Isn’t Boring Anymore” and put it on T-shirts that he sells in very small rollouts. I love this phrase so much because I 100% agree. Perhaps it’s because I actively look for the fun or that it has changed significantly over the years – regardless, I see such a difference over the last decade! Maybe a mixture of perspective and progress?

Continue reading →

Downtown Kingston is Lit

Downtown Kingston Light Installation
~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

I don’t even know if the term “lit” is popular anymore but I am going to roll with it for the purpose of this post which is to tell you about Kingston’s beautiful light installation downtown. The bright, twinkling, (they literally twinkle), lights are certainly needed at the end of this dreadful year. No, they will not act as the light at the end of this pandemic tunnel, however, with Christmas around the corner it’s important to find the silver-linings available to us and hold on tight to them! We can’t control  the current state of the world but we can control how we react to the madness! Continue reading →

Kingston’s Local Holiday Shopping Guide

~ keepupwithkingston ~ 4 Comments


I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Kingston is filled with talented artists and makers. And there is no better time of year to celebrate them then right now. It can be really easy to just hit up Amazon Prime and have the gifts delivered to our doorstep but there is also an opportunity to engage with our local entrepreneurs. As you finish up shopping for your loved ones, consider supporting someone from our community. You can find some of the vendors I mention at the Kingston Holiday Market on weekends and many of them sell online as well!  Continue reading →

Artillery Park’s Baby Boot Camp

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

To catch you up before I proceed, my husband and I welcomed a new addition to our family this year. And since this blog is about our experience living in this beautiful city, that will now include a few of the new parent/mommy-minded activities we’ve found helpful. It’s been said many times but it’s only just recently hit home (due to this latest life milestone!) that Kingston is a wonderful place to raise a kid. There are so many resources — some free and many affordable things to do. So I am going to tell you about one I’ve found really helpful so far!

I’ve always tried to stay active and that’s something post-baby that I was having a hard time fitting into my mat-leave schedule, enter Mom/Dad and Baby Boot Camp at Artillery Park. Our instructor, Patricia, lends a good mix of sweet and kind with tough love and badassery, cooing at our babes one minute and yelling at us to grab heavier weights the next. I started classes twice a week at 3 months postpartum and feel so much stronger and more energetic two months later. Patricia is mindful of how much we can push ourselves physically without overdoing it in our new postpartum bodies. Continue reading →

CHOIR!CHOIR!CHOIR! Is Coming to Kingston as part of the Festival of Live Digital Arts

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment


Kingston is home to so many amazing festivals and experiences – especially when the weather starts to heat up! This June be prepared for one of the coolest experiences – Festival of Live Digital Arts (foldA) will be blessing Kingston with an array of programming structured to support artists creating theatre in the digital age. Plenty of insta-worthy events are planned between June 12-15 for Kingston’s art and music lovers. Continue reading →

The Blue Man Group is Coming to Kingston! A Q&A with the Captain

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment


The Blue Man Group is coming to Kingston! The trio will be performing at the Leon’s Centre on March 21! The group’s Captain, Barney Haas, took a few minutes to answer some questions about the show via email. Read below to learn more about what to expect from their performance! And if you want a chance to win tickets, check out my Facebook or Instagram page to enter to win. 

Keep up with Kingston: How did you start performing for the Blue Man group? What made you want to tour with the group?
Barney Haas: Always having been a drummer, I was fascinated by the show and so I auditioned back in 2012. A series of further auditions finally led to finding myself in the training process in New York, and that’s where the adventure begun. Now it’s been 6 years and the show has taken us all around the globe. Continue reading →

Venture into Kingston’s Brand New Co-Working Space

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment


Co-working spaces are becoming more and more common as more people decide to embrace their entrepreneurial spirits and launch small businesses. These spaces fill a niche, by providing a place that offers more than a home office can as well as a community of like-minded people.

There is a new co-working space in Kingston, Venture Club, offering that and more. The new space on the corner of Queen Street and Barrie offers reception service, printing services, meeting rooms, fast internet in full furnished spaces to those looking to rent an office space. Continue reading →

Q&A: Don Maynard on his upcoming Art Installation at the Skeleton Park Arts Festival

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of I love this city because I make at least one new friend every day and each is more inspiring and fantastic to be around than the last (3)
Have you heard? The Skeleton Park Arts Festival   is kicking off on June 20-24! This festival does a beautiful job at sharing and displaying the work of Kingston’s most talented artists and brings the community together for great food and music. A very exciting installation being featured is by Don Maynard called the Skeye Project. It will feature the work of local filmmakers on a floating movie screen held up by helium balloons. Oh the whimsy! Something you should be sure to check out. Don has answered a few questions via email about his work and upcoming show (June 22 – 9 pm in Friendship Park) below. Read on to learn more.

Keep up with Kingston: Please share a bit of your background in creative projects like the Skeye Project?
Don Maynard: It was ten years ago in 2007 in Kingston that I did a similar project, Tidal Mass at the NGB studios, which involved a large public installation in collaboration with about 13 musicians. NGB Studios, Kingston. There were 1,850 used fluorescent light bulbs, steel, 250 compact fluorescent light bulbs, steel rods and it was 29″ x 32′ x 54′.

Continue reading →

#DKShopfest Feature: Fancy That/Roundstone Owner Maria Cronk

~ keepupwithkingston ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve found yourself at the corner of Princess and King street in the past 20 years or so, you’ve likely stopped in to clothing stores Fancy That or Roundstone. These shops are a staple of Kingston’s downtown and where you’ll find great deals on June 16 as downtown Kingston celebrates DKShopfest. DKShopfest is a day dedicated to celebrating and supporting our locally owned shops while scoring great deals. I wanted to learn a little more about Fancy That owner, Maria Cronk. She was kind enough to answer a few questions via email. Read below to learn how Fancy That started and what Maria loves most about being a Kingston shop owner.

Keep up with Kingston: Please share how Fancy That started? How many years have you been open?

Maria Cronk: Fancy That Group started in 1974 by Inger Sparring (my mother) in Brockville, ON. We started as one small store in Brockville, ON and grew over the years. At one point we had nine stores across Eastern Ontario! Now, we have two stores in downtown Kingston (Fancy That & the Roundstone) and one store in Brockville (Limestone & Ivy). IN 1979, my brother, Dan, joined in the business, he runs our store in Brockville, and I joined in 1985 to run the Kingston stores.

We came to downtown Kingston in May 1985 with Fancy That. Continue reading →