7th ANNUAL
CELEBRATE TORONTO STREET FESTIVAL
July 8 – 10, 2005
World’s
longest street to feature free entertainment for the whole family!
Over 500
artists on four distinct sites! 16
different performance spaces!
Phenomenally
successful restaurant promotion Summerlicious returns!
Toronto
Special Events – Canada’s 1,896-kilometre cul-de-sac will once again
be transformed into a curb to curb celebration of tastes, talent and all
that is Toronto for the 7th Annual Celebrate Toronto Street
Festival, July 8 – 10, 2005.
Yonge
Street, where it intersects with Dundas St., St. Clair Ave., Eglinton Ave.
and Lawrence Ave. will be converted into four distinct sites for free
entertainment covering the artistic spectrum and ideal for the whole
family.
Each
festival site provides a combination of musical entertainment, street
theatre, circus arts and so much more and each main stage within each site
has been themed: Dundas St.:
Global Roots and Rhythms Stage; St. Clair Ave.: the Scotiabank Big
Band Stage; Eglinton Ave.: the Midtown Mix Stage and Lawrence Ave.: The
McDonald’s® Main Stage.
With over
500 artists from every corner of the world on four distinct sites, the
Celebrate Toronto Street Festival will include:
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On the Global Roots and Rhythms Stage (Dundas): the female quartet Roses in the Snow, Afrofest: Fojeba, The Gary Kendall Band, Kalabash, 2005 Juno Award-winner Sonia Collymore, the Flyer Bulger Klezmer Band and The Liquidaires;
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On the Scotiabank Big Band Stage (St. Clair): the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, John Alcorn with Strings, Anna Romain, DeeKaye Ibomeka, and the Wyndam Regency Orchestra;
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On the Midtown Mix Stage (Eglinton): the East Village Opera Company (Tyley Ross/Peter Kiesewalter), teenage pop sensations Liam Titcomb, Aselin Debison and Christine Evans, Afrokraut rockers Shawn Hewitt and The National Strike and Kevin Hearn (of Barenaked Ladies);
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On the McDonald’s® Main Stage (Lawrence): Second City’s Big Bad Wolf vs. Lord Underwareface von Schtinker, one of the best mountain bike trials riders in the world Ryan Leech and an open-air screening of the Academy Award-winning “The Incredibles” among many, many, other performers and special activities for the entire family.
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A large
midway will also be set up at Yonge and Eglinton with a special
children’s midway at Yonge and Lawrence.
The
Celebrate Toronto Street Festival will also present the Toronto debut of
Les Girafes – An Urban Operetta from Compagnie Off (France). Yonge Street will never be the same after a herd of
8-metre high red giraffes manipulated, articulated and disarticulated by
18 invisible operators blind and on stilts slide along at a low trot,
swinging their long flexible necks and standing out nonchalantly against
the facades of Yonge Street. An
event not to be missed!
A full
schedule with a complete list of all performers including bios is
available online at www.toronto.ca/special_events.
The
Celebrate Toronto Street Festival also marks the return of the
phenomenally successful restaurant promotion Summerlicious presented by
American Express which will once again shine the spotlight on Toronto's
hospitality industry. Summerlicious
is back with prix fixe offers at 120 of Toronto's finest restaurants. The
prix fixe menus are available at lunch and dinner at unbelievable price
points. In past years
Torontonians and tourists alike enthusiastically celebrated the diverse
and innovative cuisine of Toronto with delicious menus available at
restaurants city-wide. Summerlicious
kicks off on July 8, to coincide with the Street Festival opening
celebration, and runs until July 24.
Also,
discover Toronto from July 8 – 24 with the Celebrate Toronto Passport,
offering discounts at 24 of Toronto’s most thrilling destinations.
Visit www.toronto.ca for
printable coupons or call Access Toronto at 416-338-0338 for a list of
locations where you can pick up a copy of the passport booklet.
Admission
to the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival is FREE and getting there
couldn’t be easier. All
four festival sites are accessible via the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
Festival
hours are: Friday, July 8:
7pm-10pm (Dundas only), Saturday, July 9:
12 noon – 11pm (all sites), Sunday, July 10:
12 noon – 8pm (all sites).
In six short
years the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival has grown to be one of
Toronto’s highest-profile events with an annual attendance of more than
one million people over 3 days. 20%
of the festival’s total audience is tourists whose spending alone
generates an economic impact of $7.4 million in the GTA.
Since its inception in 1998, the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival
has been awarded six Festivals and Events Ontario Awards, three Canadian
Event Industry Awards and two Ontario Economic Development Awards.
The addition of the Summerlicous restaurant promotion to the
festival in 2003 has continued to increase the festival’s potential to
generate major impact on the Toronto economy.
Yonge
Street, known as the longest street in the world, was named in honour of
Sir George Yonge, British Secretary of War in 1793. Lacking a “highway
department,” Governor John Graves Simcoe forced settlers to spend 12
days a year to clear the road of logs and, as part of their sentence,
convicted drunks removed the stumps. The Queen’s Rangers extended the
street from Old York (now Toronto) to Lake Simcoe by 1796. And by the
1800s, Yonge Street extended to Georgian Bay. Better known today as
Highway 11, Yonge Street stretches 1,896 kilometres from Toronto to Rainy
River on the border of Manitoba and the United States.
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For
more information on the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival, the
entertainment line-up and Summerlicious presented by American Express
(including participating restaurants and menus) visit Toronto online at
www.toronto.ca/special _events or the public can call Access Toronto at
416-338-0338.
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MEDIA
CONTACT:
Grant
Ramsay
Toronto
Special Events
(416)
395-7318
