And just like that, summer is half over. It always sneaks up on us a little bit, but by the time the school year ends, it’s mid-June, and even adults who don’t have school-age children feel a shift. More customers are coming in on odd hours due to summer schedules or PTO. Morning traffic patterns shift from being heaviest between 6:45-7:30 a.m. to closer to 9 a.m., while the afternoon 3:30-5 p.m. drive gets exponentially heavier.

Some kids go to summer camps, while others start summer jobs, so there are adjustments in that first full week after school ends, and everyone is just looking forward to a little break around Independence Day. After July 4, colleagues become more scarce, and more e-mails have out-of-office auto-responses people take vacation time, and before you know it, it’s July 20-something and half of the summer has gone by.

Just re-reading those two paragraphs can be panic-inducing because we all feel it. Weekly, it seems we tell ourselves, “If I can make it through this week, things should lighten up,” but at the beginning of the next week it’s right back to the grind.

I write all of this for two reasons. First and foremost, so that you know we’re all feeling that same pressure and you’re not alone. Secondly though, if every week is a grind, you may have missed some of what’s coming up in the area because your head was down focusing only on what is most urgent. Therefore, this week, I want to highlight several projects and events coming up for you to enjoy, and also get you caught up on some local business news.

DANCE TO THE MUSIC

An almost daily occurrence in our region is live outdoor music, with five days per week of outdoor concerts. Tuesdays, Fridays (Library Gazebo) and Saturdays (Waterfront Park) the live music is in Bath with the Summer Concert Series 2022 happening through Labor Day. Wednesdays are Brunswick’s turn with the BDA’s Music on the Mall series on the Brunswick Mall. Thursdays round out the five days of music with Bandstand By the Sea, weekly on the stage at Mitchell Field.

Beyond those concerts, though, you also have the return of the Bowdoin International Music Festival this summer with concerts happening at least daily and some days with two to three performances in a day. Concerts range from soloists to quartets to a collection of young artists. Their jammed-pack schedule features many performances on the Bowdoin campus, but they also perform several community concerts each month at senior living facilities and other traditional concert venues. Find their concert schedule at BowdoinFestival.org

Finally, the L.L. Bean Summer Concert series in Discovery Park has four of their eight headliner shows still to come this summer with eclectic acts ranging from country to British pop to soul-infused rock. This venue, outside the main store of L.L. Bean in Freeport, annually brings family-friendly artists to their large outdoor space.

MORE THAN MUSIC: ARTS AND CULTURE OUTINGS

Beyond the concerts, most of the groups in the previous section also have other festivals and events happening for you to enjoy. There are two Friday Art Walk events with two occurrences each remaining, with 2nd Friday Brunswick (happening August 12 and September 9) and the Bath Art Hop on the third Fridays (August 19 and September 16) in their respective downtowns.

L.L. Bean Discovery Park has weekly events like Yoga in the Park (Sundays, Tuesdays, Fridays at 8 a.m.) and Yin & Yang Yoga (Mondays and Wednesdays at 8 a.m.). The difference between the two, in layman’s terms, is the former will have more stretching and all levels are welcome, while the latter is more focused on balance and energy and is a bit more advanced. They also have movie nights in the park on Fridays and Sundays at 7 p.m. Fridays are family movie nights while Sundays are a collection of outdoor adventure films curated by the Maine Outdoor Film Festival.

Lastly, Bath Main Street has two movie nights every summer in Library Park and due to weather, the first one got postponed until next Monday. They’ll be showing family-classic The Sandlot this Monday night, July 25 at 8 p.m. They will show “Back to the Future” on August 8.

RIBBON CUTTINGS: NEW SPACES

The much-anticipated opening of the Midcoast Humane Society’s new space (5 Industrial Parkway, Brunswick) is happening this Saturday, July 23, with a Ribbon Cutting at 10:30 a.m. and an open house to follow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

That’s of course not the only new business popping up. We expect to have ribbon cuttings over the next two months at Reform Physical Therapy in Brunswick (they took the Humane Society’s building on Pleasant Street just before the Exit 28 on-ramp to I-295), at the new Jersey Mike’s in the Topsham Fair Mall, and also at the mall, The Cheesy Skillet (a mac and cheese specialty restaurant taking over the old Little Caesar’s space). Depending on renovation timelines, we may do the two Topsham restaurants as a ribbon cutting the same day. We shall see.

CHAMBER EVENTS AND UPDATES

Of course, I can’t pass up the chance for these three chamber updates:

• Chamber networking: Chamber Trail Walks, August 12, 3 p.m.; Chamber After Hours at J. Edward Knight, Bath (co-sponsored by Ebb & Flow Yoga), August 18, 5 p.m.; 12 @ 12 Networking Lunch (we skip August; next one September 21, noon).
• Christmas in July: Next week we’ll begin registering past tree sponsors of the Midcoast Tree Festival and then open up new registrations for 2022 (November 2022).
• We are four to five weeks away from some big news with our chamber workforce program called Chamber Works 2030. Until then you can catch up on our workforce progress in a series of weekly videos. The first of five videos was released on our YouTube channel last Friday and can also be found on our Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber Facebook page.

Cory King is the executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber.