A Bigger Shell for a Small City's Biggest Stage

For four summers, the point at Presque Isle Park had a hole in it. Not a literal one — the park's rocky shoreline and cedar stands were as gorgeous as ever — but a musical one. The old Presque Isle Bandshell, a fixture since the 1930s, had been fenced off and decommissioned in 2022 over safety concerns, and a town that measures its summers in outdoor concerts suddenly had nowhere on the water to hold them.

That gap closed on June 25, when the Peg Hirvonen Bandshell opened with a ribbon-cutting and an inaugural Marquette City Band concert. The new $2.3 million structure sits on the footprint of the original, funded through community donations and the Ray & Peg Hirvonen Foundation. Designed by Minneapolis firm AWH Architects, it's roughly half again as large as its predecessor, with improved accessibility, reworked audience seating, landscaping, and storage — while deliberately echoing the silhouette of the shell generations of Yoopers grew up in front of.

The symbolism is hard to miss. The Marquette City Band has been performing since 1887; a band older than the state fair's grandstand needed a stage that wouldn't condemn itself out from under it. The 2026 summer series moved onto the new deck fast, with City Band dates running through July and into August.

Here's why a bandshell matters more than it sounds. Indoor rooms — Kaufman, the brewery stages — do the heavy lifting nine months a year up here, because nine months a year you need a roof and a furnace. But the free, outdoor, bring-a-blanket concert is the one that pulls in people who'd never buy a ticket: families, retirees, teenagers with nothing to do, tourists who wandered up from the lighthouse. That's the on-ramp to a music scene, and Marquette had let its best one rust.

The new shell also quietly raises the ceiling for what can be booked at Presque Isle. A larger stage with real infrastructure means the park can host touring acts, not just community ensembles — and indeed, the summer's calendar already routes national folk duos out to the point (see our Aug 4 preview). A century-old civic-band stage becoming a legitimate touring stop is exactly the kind of upgrade a small city rarely gets to make.

So walk out to the point on a warm evening. Bring the blanket, bring the flannel for later, and notice that the hole in the summer is filled. It only took four years, two-plus million dollars, and a foundation named for people who understood that a town's music needs somewhere to stand.

Sources: A new stage for Presque Isle Park: The Peg Hirvonen Bandshell nears completion — WNMU-FM; Bandshell ribbon cutting and opening City Band concert scheduled for June 25 — City of Marquette; Marquette City Band — Upcoming Concerts