Area set to bustle with entertainment, music and fun.
The Toronto Waterfront Festival is set to return to the Sugar Beach Park this September.
The annual two day festival will be bringing plenty of entertainment, cultural activities, food and more, on Sept. 14 and 15.
Harmony marketing, with the partnership of waterfront BIA will host the festival. However, there are more names, like Billy Shop Toronto City Airport and Redpath just to name a few.
“We want to bring people down to the waterfront in the off-peak season. It’s gorgeous and sometimes warmer than May or June. so, three years ago, we’ve decided to start in September,” said Victoria Mahoney, head of marketing & partnerships at harmony marketing. “This is our fourteenth year, and the whole mandate of the festival is to bring on land and on water programming. So, every year we have, of course, a water theme, but we always have to have something with an on water component. So we brought the North American Flyboard Championships – like a big jet pack on water. We have the tall ships every three years. We’ve brought the world’s largest rubber duck. We’ve had this canine water sport competition that’s coming in 2024 so really, the whole mandate is to showcase Toronto’s waterfront, put it on an international scale, and always have on land and on water programming, which we do every year.”
Mahoney says the first time the Waterfront Festival was held was 2008. This test version of the event to gauge interest would end up seeing more than 500,000 people attend. After taking a year off to plan, the festival returned in 2010 and has continued to run ever since.
The festival is set to include many activities for the family such as the Canine Watersports Canada competition, an emerging artist’s showcase, and Indigenous performances, among other things.
The Canadian Armed Forces will also make an appearance by rolling in with a massive, armored vehicle, weighing over 45,000 pounds. People can meet the crew of the Navy and take photos with armored vehicles.
People will be able to buy food from different vendors. However, there will be some free food such as free pizza from Dr. Oetker, cookies from Redpath and some other sample foods, beverages and products.
Mahoney also says for the first time, they will be asking for people to make donations towards the event. The event will still be free, as they do not want to discourage people who may not be able to pay from attending, but she adds that this will help keep the festival free in the future.
“For the first time ever, we are asking people to voluntarily pay what they can if they feel like they had a good time. If they feel like it’s worth even $5 we ask them, we’re going to have machines, information booths for people to be able to tap when they come in or when they leave, and this has really just helped keep our event free for years to come. So we don’t want to discourage anyone who might not be able to attend for a fee. We definitely still want everyone to be able to come, but for the first year, we will be asking people to support the event if they can. So yeah, so that’s kind of the first year we’re doing that.”
The festival runs 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 14 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 15.
If you plan to attend the festival or are looking for more information you can visit https://towaterfrontfest.com/.
