Snowbird Extravaganza is returning to the McAllen Convention Center, marking its 28th year in Texas. The event will be held on Wednesday, February 26, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and there will be entertainment and door prizes.
Snowbird Extravaganza offers the largest single gathering of Canadians in the Rio Grande Valley and is one of the most anticipated mature lifestyle events of the year.
Every year, tens of thousands of Canadian and American winter visitors migrate to the state of Texas to escape the cold winter weather of the north. Snowbird Extravaganza is a homecoming and a celebration of this unique way of life, the “Snowbird Lifestyle.”
This event is a consumer show featuring products and services of local and national organizations showcasing Travel & Destinations, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle and Technology.
Entertainment featured at this event includes Canadian Folk Hero Valdy, the classic comedy of John Wing, Canadian Country Superstar Michelle Wright, Canada’s Ambassador of good cheer Jimmy Flynn, and Nashville recording artist Crystal Gage.
Valdy, a Canadian folksinger, has toured Canada for 46 years and plays regularly in New Zealand. He has toured Austria, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. He has 16 albums, 22 singles, four gold records, two Juno awards, and more under his belt. His recent CDs include Contender, a collaboration with friend and fellow singer/songwriter, Gary Fjellgaard, and a solo release, Viva Valdy: Live at Last, with a total of 25 tunes, and a lyric booklet.
John Wing started doing standup comedy in Toronto in 1980. He went out on the road in 1982. He has performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival several years, he has done the Just For Laughs National Comedy tour twice, and performed at every Winnipeg Comedy Festival since it started in 2000. He has done several other comedy tours along the way, doing The Tonight Show for the first time in 1990. He did several other shows after his move to Los Angeles in 1988. He has done improv and even worked on cruise ships. In 1998 he published his first book. Since then, he has published eight other books including a memoir about his first ten years as a comedian. He was also once a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. He is a regular performer at comedy festivals, has released a number of CDs, and is a regular performer in Las Vegas and on cruise ships.
Michelle Wright grew up in a family band from a small farming community in Ontario. She learned to love country music. By 1988 she had released “Do Right by Me,” an album that sold 40,000 copies in Canada. It had seven chart singles in Canada. She signed with Arista/Nashville and her first single, “New Kind of Love,” was her first top 30s hit. In 1992 she released “Now & Then” that went to the U.S. Top Ten. In 1995 she hosted the Canadian Country Music Association Awards where she received her second award as CCMA’s Fans’ Choice Entertainer of the Year.
Another comedian to join the lineup is Jimmy Flynn. Jimmy Flynn has been performing for over 25 years. With a high-energy blend of side-splitting comedy and popular music, Jimmy Flynn remains Canada’s ambassador of good cheer. He was a popular radio and television personality during the early 90’s and has produced and broadcasted over 300 radio shows, a 13-week television series, three feature length videos, CD’s, and a Christmas recording for children and four bestselling joke books. He has toured with Johnny Cash, Tommy James and the Shondells, Charlie Pride, The Everly Brothers and performed with Cheech and Chong. He dresses in his trademark red checkered shirt, yellow sou’wester and rubber boots to liven up the stage with comedy that gets the audience to laugh.
Crystal Gage is a country music entertainer from Windsor, Ontario with more than 25 years in the business. She now performs more than 250 high energy, audience-engaging shows per year. Crystal has opened for artists such as Big & Rich, Emerson Drive and Gretchen Wilson and has won several singing contests, including CMT’s Karaoke Star, from which she used the grand prize to finish and release an album, “Dust to Diamonds.” She currently spends her winters touring Florida with her husband, Ryan St. Denis, an accomplished fiddler and entertainer in his own right. The couple fills the rest of their time performing at fairs, festivals and banquets while still finding time to raise their twin daughters, Daisy and Emily.
McAllen Convention Center is located at 700 Convention Center Blvd.
