Get your chairs and bug spray ready. Lacey is going to launch outdoor concert season.

Ah, summer — the time when a performing arts lover’s attention turns to picnics, low-backed chairs and perhaps the occasional mosquito.

Lacey has not one but three summer entertainment series, two of which launch this week. This summer, there will be quite a few notables performing as part of the Huntamer Park series.

Probably the biggest-name act is Spike & The Impalers, playing July 29. The Seattle classic-rock band, which began on 102.5 KZOK’s “The Bob Rivers Show,” last played the park in 2015 during the South Sound BBQ Festival.

“They were a huge hit,” said Jeannette Sieler of Lacey’s Parks and Recreation Department. “Even in the rain, there were 700 people who came out to see them, so we decided to have them back. You would normally pay to see them, so it’s cool to have them at a free concert.”

Xakary the Magician, performing Tuesday, was seen on “America’s Got Talent” in 2015.

“He sawed Heidi Klum in half,” Sieler said. (And how many people can say that? Check out the Auburn magician’s feat.) His performance is part of the city’s children’s entertainment series, co-sponsored by the Lacey Timberland Library.

Seattle’s Recess Monkey, performing June 27 as part of the children’s series, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Children’s Album for 2016’s “Novelties.”

Canadian singer-songwriter-comedian Norman Foote, performing July 25, won a Juno — the Canadian version of the Grammy — for his 2013 album “I Love My Shirt.” Foote aims a lot of his material at older children and is known for his ventriloquist routine and for clever twists on traditional folk songs with such lyrics as “Mama's little baby loves short'nin' bread/… Mama's little baby has high cholesterol.”

Olympia’s Olson Bros Band, performing July 15, won both the 2013 Lakefair Battle of the Bands and the Country Showdown, a national songwriting contest.

Other winning performers in the lineup include pianist Scott Cossu of Olympia, whose awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from One World Music Radio, and Earshot Jazz winners Dmitry Matheny of Centralia, who plays the flugelhorn, and Kate Voss, a Seattle singer who is half of the duo Sundae & Mr. Goessel.

“The theme for this year is award winners,” Sieler said. She pointed out that “Zootopia,” screening July 22, won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe last year. And its director, Byron Howard, is a 1990 graduate of The Evergreen State College, where he studied storytelling through literature and film.

Concertgoers have a chance to be award winners, too. The final concert/movie combo, on Aug. 5, also will feature a lip-sync contest open to both children and adults.

This story was originally published June 15, 2017 at 5:34 AM with the headline "Get your chairs and bug spray ready. Lacey is going to launch outdoor concert season.."