Expanded to five days for this year, the Humboldt Summer Sizzler is set to get underway on Wednesday.

The Chris Culgin Band will be playing downtown Humboldt for a free concert, says Events Manager Mike Ulriksen.

"We're going to have a big kickoff concert down at Civic Park," he explained. "We've never done it before, so we figured let's do an official kickoff concert."

The concert, hosted by Humboldt Co-op will begin at 7:00pm, with a barbecue serving up burgers at 6:00pm.

Proceeds from the barbecue will support Arts Humboldt and their continuous work to bring music and culture to the city.

Culgin's appearance in Humboldt will be his second in 11 months.

Noted for their roots music, the band played a show at Civic Park last July, and Culgin says thanks to the work of Brian Grest with Arts Humboldt, it was an easy decision to come back. 

"It's becoming a rarity that people put the work in to advertising something and getting people to come out," he said. "Usually when you play a venue nowadays, it's mostly expected that the band will get people to come out, so I think Brian works really hard."

If you are attending the concert, you are asked to bring your own chairs and/or blankets for seating.