The Liverpool Is The Place summer concert series returns to Johnson Park on Monday, June 8, 2026, at 7 p.m., kicking off another roughly 24-concert summer that has drawn average crowds of 400 people per show for more than three decades. The free outdoor series is run by a volunteer subcommittee of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, chaired by Colleen Gunnip, with concerts staged on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Johnson Park amphitheater at Tulip Street and Second Street. Since the amphitheater was constructed in 1985, the LITP committee has staged more than 800 concerts at Johnson Park. Confirmed 2026 acts include the classic-rock and R&B band Prime Time Horn, playing Wednesday, August 12 from 7 to 9 p.m. The series is funded by CNY Arts grants, private donations, and local business sponsorships, and the rain hotline is 315-457-3895 starting at 5:30 p.m. on concert days.
The Liverpool Is The Place subcommittee, known by the shorthand LITP, sits inside the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and is the operational backbone of the series. Colleen Gunnip serves as chair and can be reached at 315-652-5029. Lucretia Hudzinski serves as volunteer coordinator at 315-727-5819. The committee’s email is [email protected]. The chamber’s main line, 315-457-3895, doubles as the rain cancellation hotline that activates at 5:30 p.m. before each scheduled concert. The committee runs the series end to end: booking, sponsorship, fundraising, sound, setup, and night-of operations.
Johnson Park itself sits at the intersection of Tulip Street and Second Street in the Village of Liverpool. The park is a few blocks from Onondaga Lake Park, and a short walk from the village’s restaurant row on First Street. The amphitheater that anchors the series was constructed in 1985 and has been the dedicated concert venue since. Audiences set up folding chairs and blankets on the lawn facing the stage. Local food trucks and vendors are typically present, though the park itself does not host a fixed concession stand.
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The Liverpool Is The Place series has run continuously in its current weekly Monday-Wednesday format for more than three decades. Eagle News Online’s 2018 coverage of the series put the run at 33 summers as of that season. The village’s 2024 references to “thirty-eight years” of support place the current modern era of LITP somewhere around 1986. The amphitheater itself, the physical stage and seating bowl that defines the venue, was constructed in 1985, just before the LITP committee organized in roughly its current form. The 800-plus concert count includes every Monday and Wednesday night the series has hosted at the amphitheater since.
The 2026 booking calendar is built around two-night-per-week scheduling. Concerts start Monday, June 8, 2026, and continue every Monday and Wednesday through summer, with the typical season totaling 24 shows. The booked acts cross genres: classic rock, R&B, country, folk, blues, brass, polka, and big-band. The committee publishes the full schedule on its Facebook page (facebook.com/litpconcerts) and through the chamber’s website. One confirmed 2026 booking is Prime Time Horn, billed as a classic-rock and R&B group, scheduled for Wednesday, August 12, 2026 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Stacy Finney is the current mayor of the Village of Liverpool, having won election in 2023 in the village’s first contested mayoral race in 14 years. Finney, a Democrat, is the first new mayor of Liverpool in 20 years. She is also an eighth-grade art teacher in the Rome school district. Finney’s office has continued the village’s standard backing of the LITP series, including park maintenance, lighting, and policing the events as free community gatherings.
The 38-year length of village support for LITP that the chamber cited in 2024 explains the depth of the series’ funding base. CNY Arts, the regional arts council that serves Onondaga, Cayuga, Madison, Oswego, and Cortland Counties, is named as a primary grant source on the chamber’s official LITP page. Private donations and local business sponsorships round out the budget. The committee does not charge admission, has no ticket revenue, and does not sell merchandise at the gate. The full operating cost is covered through grants, sponsorships, and a small donation bucket placed at the stage on concert nights.
For families planning their summer evenings, the LITP schedule has a predictable rhythm that has held since the amphitheater opened. Audiences typically begin arriving around 6 p.m. to claim seating positions facing the stage. The 7 p.m. downbeat opens with a brief committee welcome, often a quick acknowledgement of the night’s sponsor. The set runs roughly two hours with one short break. Acts close out around 9 p.m., and the lawn typically clears by 9:30. Police presence is light. Alcohol is generally allowed on the lawn under village ordinance, but the committee asks attendees to be discreet and respectful of family attendance.
The 2026 lineup will be released through the LITP Facebook page and the chamber site through May. Past summers have mixed regional cover bands, big-band ensembles, and tribute acts. Some season recurrences include polka nights, classic-rock tributes, country and Americana sets, and a children’s program billed as “Music in the Park for Kids,” which the committee has historically used to draw younger families during the late June and early July weeks.
The committee’s longevity and the size of its volunteer base are unusual for a free community concert series in the region. Most municipalities in Onondaga County offer something in this format, with Manlius, Skaneateles, and Camillus all running shorter series. None matches the cadence of Liverpool’s twice-weekly programming. The dual-night schedule predates most other CNY series and dates back to the early years after the 1985 amphitheater construction. Eagle News Online’s 2018 report tied the dual-night format directly to the LITP committee’s mission of giving “villagers and visitors” a reliable summer gathering point.
For visitors making the trip from outside the village, parking is concentrated on neighborhood streets surrounding Johnson Park. The chamber asks attendees to be respectful of residential parking rules. Streets immediately adjacent to the park fill first. The Onondaga Lake Park lot at the boat launch is roughly a half-mile walk to Johnson Park and provides spillover capacity on bigger nights. For accessibility, the park’s lawn has paved walkways from each entrance to the amphitheater bowl, and ADA seating is available at the front of the audience area on a first-come basis.
Outside the concert series, the Village of Liverpool’s summer programming includes weekend events at Onondaga Lake Park, the wider Salina Town Board calendar, and seasonal markets that anchor village commercial activity through October. The Mayor Finney administration has continued the village’s traditional support model for LITP, including in-kind services for the amphitheater. The 2026 season runs alongside other regional summer concert programming, including the long-running Manlius Town Park series and the Skaneateles series at Clift Park, but Liverpool’s two-night cadence remains the most aggressive booking schedule in central Onondaga County.
For sponsors interested in supporting the 2026 season, the chamber’s website lists tiered sponsorship packages. Committee chair Colleen Gunnip and volunteer coordinator Lucretia Hudzinski accept sponsorship inquiries directly at the listed contact numbers. The committee also takes night-of donations through the bucket at the amphitheater stage. The chamber treats LITP as a flagship community-relations program, and the 38-year history is one of the village’s most cited cultural assets in tourism material.
The 2026 lineup release is the next major milestone for fans. The committee usually drops the full schedule by mid-to-late May on the LITP Facebook page. Prime Time Horn’s August 12 booking is the first publicly confirmed date past the June 8 opener. The full lineup typically runs Memorial Day or early June through the third week of August, with the season closer historically tied to the village’s late-August festival cycle. For 2026, fans can mark the calendar starting Monday, June 8, 7 p.m., at Johnson Park’s Tulip and Second Street amphitheater, with weather hotline 315-457-3895 active from 5:30 p.m. on each concert day.
Sources & Verification
- Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, “Liverpool Is The Place Summer Concert Series,” liverpoolchamber.com/chamber-info/chamber-committees/sub-committee-liverpool-is-the-place/
- Liverpool Is The Place Concerts Facebook page, facebook.com/litpconcerts/
- CNY Arts events listing, “Liverpool is the Place Concert, Prime Time Horn,” cnyarts.org/events/events/view/liverpool-is-the-place-concert-prime-time-horn-classic-rock-and-r-and-b/
- Eagle News Online, “Livin’ in Liverpool: Students kick off summer concerts at Johnson Park,” May 30, 2018, eaglenewsonline.com
- Eagle News Online, “Liverpool Is The Place concert series returns June 6,” May 31, 2022
- Village of Liverpool, Board of Trustees roster, villageofliverpoolny.gov/board-of-trustees/
- LocalSYR/WSYR, “Stacy Finney is the next mayor of the Village of Liverpool,” 2023 election coverage, localsyr.com
- LocalSYR/WSYR, “Village of Liverpool elects new mayor for the first time in 20 years,” 2023
- Newhouse School student reporting via NCC News, “Liverpool Community Embraces Outdoor Concert Series,” nccnews.newhouse.syr.edu
- Mayor Stacy Finney official Facebook page, facebook.com/MayorStacyFinney/
By Sarah Chen, schools, zoning, and housing reporter. Edited by Frank Mahoney. Published 2026-05-11. Hero photo by Mr. Matté via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0, July 2023). In-body photo by Joegrimes via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain, May 2004).
