Regina has a substantial cultural life in music, theatre and dance, supported by the fine arts constituency at the University of Regina, which has faculties of music, theatre and arts. At various times this has attracted notable artistic talent: the
Regina Five were artists at Regina College (the university's predecessor) who gained national fame in the 1950s. The long-established
MacKenzie Art Gallery once occupied cramped quarters adjacent to Darke Hall on the University of Regina College Avenue Campus; since relocated to a large building at the southwest corner of the provincial government site, at Albert Street near 23rd Avenue.
Donald M. Kendrick,
Bob Boyer and
Joe Fafard, now with significant international reputations, have been other artists from or once in Regina. is a theatre complex and home to the
Regina Symphony Orchestra, the oldest continuously performing orchestra in Canada. Annual festivals in and near Regina through the year include the
Regina International Film Festival; Cathedral Village Arts Festival; the Spring Celebration Powwow held by the
First Nations University of Canada; the Craven Country Jamboree; the
Regina Folk Festival;
Queen City Pride; the
Queer City Cinema film festival; the Regina Dragon Boat Festival; and Mosaic, mounted by the Regina Multicultural Council, which earned Heritage Canada's designation of 2004 "Cultural Capital of Canada" (in the over 125,000 population category). The annual
Kiwanis Music Festival affords rising musical talents the opportunity to achieve nationwide recognition. The city's summer agricultural exhibition was originally established in 1884 as the Assiniboia Agricultural Association, then from the mid-1960s and up until 2009 as Buffalo Days then from that time until today, the Queen City Ex. The Regina Symphony Orchestra, Canada's oldest continuously performing orchestra, performs in the
Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts (now the Conexus Arts Centre). Concerts and recitals are performed both by local and visiting musicians in the Centre of the Arts and assorted other auditoriums including the
University of Regina. The Regina Conservatory of Music operates in the former girls' residence wing of the Regina College building. The Regina Little Theatre began in 1926, and performed in Regina College before building its own theatre in 1981. Regina lacked a large concert and live theatre venue for many years after the loss to fire of the Regina Theatre in 1938 and the demolition of the 1906 City Hall in 1964 at a time when preservation of heritage architecture was not yet a fashionable issue. But until the demolition of downtown cinemas which doubled as live theatres the lack was not urgent, and Darke Hall on the Regina College campus of the university provided a small concert and stage venue. is home to
Globe Theatre, a professional theatre company. This was remedied in 1970 with the construction of the
Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts (now the Conexus Arts Centre) as a
Canadian Centennial project, a theatre and concert hall complex overlooking Wascana Lake which is one of the most acoustically perfect concert venues in North America; it is home to the Regina Symphony Orchestra (Canada's oldest continuously performing orchestra), Opera Saskatchewan and New Dance Horizons, a contemporary dance company. The
Royal Saskatchewan Museum (the present 1955 structure a Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee project) dates from 1906.
Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral and
Knox-Metropolitan United Church have particularly impressive
Casavant Frères pipe organs, maintain substantial musical establishments and are frequently the venues for choral concerts and organ recitals. The
Regina Public Library is a citywide library system with nine branches. Its facilities include the RPL Film theatre which plays non-mainstream cinema, the Dunlop Art Gallery, special literacy services and a prairie history collection. The
MacKenzie Art Gallery in Wascana Centre and the Dunlop Art Gallery have permanent collections and sponsor travelling exhibitions. The Saskatchewan Archives and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Library also offer information for those interested in the people of Saskatchewan.
Parks and attractions Regina has a substantial proportion of its overall area dedicated as parks and green spaces, with biking paths, cross-country skiing venues, and other recreational facilities throughout the city. Wascana Lake, the venue for summer boating activities, is regularly cleared of snow in winter for skating, and there are toboggan runs both in Wascana Centre and downstream on the banks of Wascana Creek.
Victoria Park is in the central business district and numerous green spaces throughout the residential subdivisions and subdivisions in the north and west of the city contain large ornamental ponds to add interest to residential precincts such as Rochdale, Lakewood, Lakeridge, Spruce Meadows, and Windsor Park. Older school playing fields throughout the city have also been converted into landscaped parks. is a public park located in the centre of Regina's
central business district. The city operates five municipal golf courses, including two in King's Park northeast of the city. Kings Park Recreation facility is also home to ball diamonds, picnic grounds, and stock car racing. Within half an hour's drive are the summer cottage and camping country and winter ski resorts in the
Qu'Appelle Valley with Last Mountain and Buffalo Pound Lakes and the four
Fishing Lakes of Pasqua, Echo, Mission and Katepwa; slightly farther east are Round and Crooked Lakes, also in the Qu'Appelle Valley, and to the southeast the
Kenosee Lake cottage country.
Wascana Centre is a park built around Wascana Lake and designed in 1961 by
Minoru Yamasaki — the Seattle-born architect best known as the designer of the original
World Trade Center in New York – in tandem with his starkly
modernist design for the new
Regina Campus of the
University of Saskatchewan. Wascana Lake was created as a "stock watering hole" — for the
CPR's
rolling stock, that is – in 1883 when a dam and bridge were constructed 1½ blocks to the west of the present
Albert Street Bridge. A new dam and bridge were built in 1908, and Wascana Lake was used as a domestic water source, to cool the city's power plant and, in due course, for the new provincial legislative building. is a provincially operated park built around Wascana Lake. By the 1920s, with Boggy Creek as a source of domestic water and wells into the aquifer under Regina, Wascana Lake had ceased to have a utilitarian purpose and had become a primarily recreational facility, with bathing and boating its principal uses. It was drained in the 1930s as part of a government relief project; 2,100 men widened and dredged the lake bed and created two islands using only hand tools and horse-drawn wagons. Downstream from Wascana Lake, Wascana Creek continues to provide a lush parkland on its increasingly intensively developed perimeter; in the northwest quadrant of the city Wascana Creek has a second weir with a smaller reservoir in A.E. Wilson Park.
Visitor attractions Regina is a travel destination for residents of southeastern Saskatchewan and the immediately adjacent regions of the neighbouring US states of North Dakota and Montana, and an intermediate stopping point for travellers on the Trans-Canada Highway. Tourism is promoted by
Tourism Regina. Attractions for visitors in Regina include: is a provincial museum and attraction located in Regina. station,
Casino Regina is a casino operated by
Sask Gaming. •
Wascana Centre, a park around Wascana Lake bringing together lands containing government, recreational, cultural, educational and environmental buildings and facilities. •
Victoria Park in downtown Regina offers the Regina Folk Festival and other outdoor festivities including the nearby Farmers Market in the summertime. • the
Royal Saskatchewan Museum (a museum of natural history); • the
Saskatchewan Science Centre, housed in the 1914 Powerhouse on east Wascana Lake; • the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery and numerous smaller galleries and museums; •
the Roman Catholic cathedral on 13th Avenue in the West End, but also perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent the
Anglican cathedral in downtown Regina and the
Romanian Orthodox cathedral on Victoria Avenue in the East End; • the
Hotel Saskatchewan first opened by the CPR has accommodated royalty on numerous occasions and still maintains the ambiance of a bygone time •
Knox-Metropolitan United Church on Victoria Park in downtown Regina: the surviving downtown congregation of the United Church (Metropolitan Methodist and the now demolished or closed Knox, Carmichael and St Andrew's United Churches, previously Presbyterian, were its antecedents or now-defunct daughter congregations) with the largest pipe organ in Regina; • the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
national training centre and the
museum; •
Government House, where regular tours are available, conducted by guides in "period" costume and the
Lieutenant-Governor holds an annual
levée on New Year's Day; •
Casino Regina, in the old Union Station; • the
Globe Theatre in the
Old Post Office building on the Scarth Street Mall; • events held at
Mosaic Stadium sports stadium and the
Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts; • REAL District, formerly
Evraz Place (formerly Ipsco Place, previously Regina Exhibition Park), the venue for the annual Queen City Ex (formerly Buffalo Days Exhibition) summer agricultural fair every August; and • the
Canadian Western Agribition, a winter agricultural show and marketplace every November. The former large-scale Children's Day Parade and Travellers' Day Parade during Fair Week in the summer, which were substantially supported by the
Masons and
Shriners, has become the fair parade as such service clubs have lost vitality; the Regina Exhibition's travelling midway divides its time among other western Canadian and US cities. A
Santa Claus parade is now mounted during the lead-up to Christmas.
Sports is an open-air stadium that is the home arena for the
CFL's
Saskatchewan Roughriders. The
Saskatchewan Roughriders of the
Canadian Football League play their home games at
Mosaic Stadium in Regina. Formed in 1910 as the Regina Rugby Club and renamed the Regina Roughriders in 1924 and the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1946, the "Riders" are a community-owned team with a loyal fan base; out-of-town
season ticket holders often travel or more to attend home games. The team has won the
Grey Cup on five occasions, in 1966, 1989, 2007, 2013, and 2025. Regina is also home to a successful women's football team, the
Regina Riot of the
Western Women's Canadian Football League. The Riot have won three league championships, in 2015, 2017, and 2018. Other sports teams in Regina include the four-time
Memorial Cup champion
Regina Pats of the
Western Hockey League, the
Regina Thunder of the
Canadian Junior Football League, the
Prairie Fire of the
Rugby Canada Super League, the
Regina Red Sox of the
Western Canadian Baseball League, and the University of Regina's
Regina Cougars/
Regina Rams of
U Sports. Regina is also where all Water Polo players from Saskatchewan centralize, Regina's team being Water Polo Armada. Regina's curling teams have distinguished the city for many decades. Richardson Crescent commemorates the
Richardson curling team of the 1950s. In recent years Olympic Gold medal winner
Sandra Schmirler and her rink occasioned vast civic pride; the Sandra Schmirler Leisure Centre in east Regina commemorates her. Regina held the
1973,
1983, and
2011 World Men's Curling Championship. The city has two curling clubs: The
Caledonian and the
Highland. North-east of the city lies
Kings Park Speedway, a ⅓-mile paved oval used for
stock car racing since the late 1960s. Regina hosted the
Western Canada Summer Games in 1975, and again in 1987, as well as being the host city for the 2005
Canada Summer Games. Regina also held the 2014
North American Indigenous Games. == Demographics ==