MOOSE JAW — The curtain is about to close on one of Western Canada’s beloved tribute concert tours, and fans will have one last chance to sing along when the Louisiana Hayride Farewell Tour returns to the Mae Wilson Theatre for one last visit this fall.
After 15 years of bringing the golden era of country and rockabilly to life, the show’s final Moose Jaw performance is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 8.
This means the upcoming stop in Moose Jaw — one of the tour’s regular and consistently supportive host cities — will be the last time audiences can enjoy the nostalgia-filled showcase, complete with world-class tribute performances to music legends such as Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, Shania Twain, Willie Nelson, and Elvis Presley.
“It’ll be bittersweet, that’s for sure,” said Lori Risling, co-producer and performer with the Louisiana Hayride Show. “We’ve had (so) many sold-out shows in Moose Jaw. It’s just so gratifying; it warms our hearts.”
The upcoming show promises a few surprises for the farewell tour.
“Our drummer is going to sing a song — he’s never sung in the show before — and … our original keyboard player will be with us, as well as the one that we got after him,” Risling said.
The two musicians, both multi-instrumentalists, will switch off between guitar and keyboard throughout the performance and are each slated to take on a Jerry Lee Lewis song on the piano. This will be the first time the two will have performed together onstage.
“We’ve never had anything quite like that before, but the basics of the show will still be the same,” she said.
Risling said ending the tour was a difficult choice, but the workload behind the scenes and the demands of constant travel ultimately made it necessary.
“My husband and I are long past retirement age, and it’s catching up with us,” she said. “Behind the scenes, it’s a lot of work. If somebody could just pick us up and set us on the stage and we could do our thing, that would be awesome.”
In addition to producing and performing, Risling handles everything from radio ads and graphic design to stage direction and scheduling along with her husband, Gil. The couple also hauls the cargo trailer full of musical equipment between provinces — a task that’s become more daunting in recent years.
“We actually had an accident on the way to a show in December and we totalled our vehicle and our cargo trailer,” she said. “That kind of shook us up.”
After this fall’s stops in B.C. and Saskatchewan and a few Alberta venues in early 2026, the show will take its final bow. Risling said this milestone makes her proud given the show’s humble beginnings.
“When we started, we had no idea (how well the show would do),” she said. “We were just doing a local show, and then it sold out. We thought, ‘Okay, well, let’s just go.’” From there, the show caught on and performed in Vernon, B.C., then Kamloops, B.C., and then across Alberta and Saskatchewan. “It just kept doing better and better,” she reflected.
If there was one highlight over the years, Risling pointed to the show’s unexpected success. “We had no idea that the genre was so lacking, and people just gravitated to it.”
Above all, Risling said she hopes Moose Jaw knows how much its support has meant.
“We absolutely love the Mae Wilson Theatre. We love performing there, and we love working with all the crew. The people in Moose Jaw are just amazing — they’re so welcoming. They’ve supported us for 15 years, and we do appreciate it.”
Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased through the Moose Jaw Centre for Arts and Culture box office and online at Tickets.MooseJawCulture.ca. To learn more about the show, visit HayrideShow.com.
