The summer is short. Make it count.
Calgary summer is legitimately one of the best things about living here. The long days, the mountains forty-five minutes away, the outdoor patios, the festivals. But summer also has a way of slipping by without you actually doing the things you meant to do. The people who get the most out of Calgary summers are the ones with at least a loose plan.
The Rocky Mountains are your closest asset. A day trip to Banff or Kananaskis for a hike is genuinely world-class and accessible from downtown Calgary in under an hour. Kayaking on the Bow River runs through the city itself and doesn't even require leaving town. Paddleboarding, cycling on the extensive trail network, and outdoor climbing in the Bow Valley are all within easy reach.
Photography walks through Calgary's river pathways and green spaces are underrated. The Elbow River trail, the pathway through Fish Creek Park, and the views from Scotsman's Hill over Inglewood are genuinely beautiful in summer. Mixler has run photography walk events that combine the outdoor experience with the social element.
Mountains in the morning, Mixler event in the evening. That's the perfect Calgary summer day.
Summer Mixler events tend to be more varied because we can use outdoor and pop-up venues that aren't available in winter. Outdoor cocktail evenings, social events on patios, and summer evening workshops are a different vibe than our winter events, and we love them for it.
Outdoor summer festivals create great spontaneous social opportunities. The Calgary Folk Music Festival, Stampede fringe events, outdoor movie nights in Prince's Island Park, and the many neighbourhood block parties that happen through July and August all create the kind of loose, warm-weather socializing that's harder to engineer in winter.
Mixler runs summer events across Calgary that are social, fun, and worth planning your evening around.
For some reason, summer feels like the right time to start something new. Rock climbing, kayaking, salsa dancing, pottery. The energy is there, the days are long, and there's a generally experimental quality to summer that makes trying something unfamiliar feel lower stakes.
Mixler summer events often feature activities that have an outdoor or adventurous quality. We look at what people are genuinely curious about in summer and build programming around that. Classes that have waiting lists in winter sometimes have the best energy in July when people show up with fresh motivation.
Pick one thing you've meant to learn for years and book it for July. The summer energy will carry you through.
Summer is the easiest time of year to suggest activities to people you want to get to know better. 'Want to kayak on Saturday?' or 'I'm doing a cocktail class Friday, want to come?' land much more easily in summer than in winter. Use the season's energy to make moves you've been putting off.
One Mixler summer event can unlock a lot of secondary connections. People you meet at a summer cocktail night might invite you to a backyard BBQ the following weekend, which opens an entirely new social group. Summer social networks in Calgary are loosely connected in ways that are genuinely easy to navigate if you put yourself in a few rooms.