A day five years in the making is coming up on Saturday.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders will officially open the doors on the new Mosaic Stadium with the first ever regular season game played in the 33,000-seat jewel in Regina.

“It’s one of the most important days in the history of this franchise,” said Craig Reynolds, Riders’ President and CEO, earlier this week. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to open a state-of-the-art stadium like this in front of our fans. It’s tied in with Canada 150 and it’s going to be an absolutely amazing day.”

The stadium has hosted some test events already, including the Riders’ preseason meeting with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who will be Saturday’s opponent as well, but this weekend will be the first time that the organization has had the opportunity to show off what the $278-million facility is capable of.

Reynolds stated that they will be pulling out all the stops for the game.

“We’re going to see the full show across the board,” said Reynolds.

“I would encourage fans to come early, there will be some pre-game ceremonies and festivities and then we have a large-scale halftime production. We’re going to celebrate what we’ve accomplished here collectively as a community.”

The halftime show has been produced in conjunction with the same group that works on the Grey Cup halftime show and will feature over 200 fans and performers.

“I don’t want to tell too much, but it’s going to be large scale,” said Reynolds.

Work began on the new stadium in 2014 and the first game played there was between the University of Saskatchewan Huskies and University of Regina Rams in Oct. of last year.

The Riders moved their offices over to the stadium earlier this year and Reynolds said it still has that in awe everyday.

“There’s a wow factor when I see our football operations space and you talk to our players that have been elsewhere and they just rave about it,” he said. “Day-to-day when you show up here and you’re able to look out into the stadium, it’s iconic, it’s a world class facility that we have here and we should all be proud.”

Reynolds has been a part of the stadium planning and construction from the start and he said he’s really excited to show it off to Rider Nation this weekend.

“There’s tremendous pride in our team and what we’ve accomplished here, and an incredible sense of satisfaction working with the city and province to deliver this for our fans. This has always been about our fans, our fans deserve this type of facility,” he said. “To see what Saturday is going to be, 33,000 Rider fans enjoying this world class facility, pride is what comes to mind.”

There will be pre-game festivities inside the stadium and at Confederation Park with the Party in the Park.

Kick-off is at 7 p.m. Saturday.