events / festivals, Toronto

Canada’s largest, annual outdoor book and magazine festival, The Word On
The Street Toronto is your ticket to free family fun this fall.

On Sunday, September 24, 2006, from 11:00a.m. to 6:00p.m. Queen’s Park
will transform into a literary theme park for the 17th annual The Word
On The Street Toronto. Whether you’re an avid reader or just a beginner,
there is something for everyone to enjoy at The Word On The Street
Toronto!

Visitors can browse the more than 250 book, magazine and literacy
exhibitor booths in the festival marketplace or check-out our the more
than 100 featured authors, poets, storytellers, performers and industry
experts at any of the 11 on-site performance venues.

There will be plenty to see and do at this year's festival, and best of
all, The Word On The Street Toronto and all of its events are FREE!

Winterlicious is a culinary event that occurs every year during Toronto's WinterCity festival. During this time restaurants participating in Winterlicious offer a special menu that is typically much less expensive than you would normally find at these fine dining establishments. Lunch is either $10 or $20 per person and dinner is $20 or $30 per person depending on the restaurant. The prix fixe menu typically includes several courses and is an excellent way to try many restuarants that would normally be out of reach for some folks. The reservations get snapped up quickly, so if there is a specific restaurant that you have your heart set on, make your reservations as soon as you can.

Check the winterlicious web page for dates and participating restaurants as they change every year.

Perhaps my favourite festival or event in Toronto in the Beaches Jazz Festival. This is an amazing event that features three nights of 50 or so bands playing along a 2km stretch of Queen Street. Many of the bands are of exceptional quality and the whole event draws quite a crowd. Somewhere 250,000 people showed up on any given night last year. On the Saturdays and Sundays of the fest there is a lengthy music fest held at the gazebo in Kew Gardens. Everyone spreads out a blanket on the grass or sit in the beer garden nearby. My only beef about the Beaches Jazz Festival is there is no much in the way of traditional jazz these days. I would be shocked if I heard a John Coltrane tune.
If you are in Toronto in 2004 I will advise you that the festival is being held from June 22 to June 25.

The Word On The Street (WOTS) is a literary festival that takes place every year in September in cities across Canada, including Toronto.

For the first years the festival has took place on Queen Street West, with the whole street closed off for the day. The WOTS has since moved to Queen's Park (the site of the Ontario provincial legislature) so that they can have more space.

It's a great event, especially for booklovers. It features all kinds of book sales, readings and other literary activities. It is a great place to broaden your horizons.

It takes place the last Sunday in September and admission is FREE!

The Canadian National Exhibition has been a traditional part of Toronto for over a hundred years as it was established in 1879. It's held the last few weeks of the summer and closes on Labour Day in September. Enjoy the Midway with it's rides and games and stuff yourself in the Food Hall, my favourite part, it's filled with food from all over the world. Try the Tiny Tom donuts, little round donuts fresh out of the oil and coated with icing sugar. They are divine when still warm. There's always a lineup at this booth.
A big part of the EX (as it's known) is the annual Airshow which is held at the end of the Exhibition. Planes from all over the world attend and you can watch them do their maneuvers over Lake Ontario.
For those who love to shop there are exhibit halls with vendors from all over plying their trade. Everything from food to furniture to handbags and jewellery.
General admission tickets are $12 but you can also visit Ontario Place with this ticket during the EX, children 13 and under are $8. There's a walkover that leads you directly into Ontario Place. Tickets for rides on the Conklin Midway are extra.

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For one weekend every August, some 50,000 fans of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, anime, cosplay, comic books, and video games descend on the Metro Toronto Convention Centre transforming the hall and most of the surrounding streets into a complete freakshow. This is the only place in Canada you'll see Mr. Tumnus from "The Chronicles of Narnia", Wolverine from "The X-Men", and a Stormtrooper from "Star Wars" posing together for a photograph. Yes, it's the weekend for Toronto's geeks to come out of their parents' basement and shine! And shine brightly like a lightsaber, they do! Fan Expo Canada is the largest event of its kind in Canada.
Costumes galore--some of the most unimaginable, creative, and outlandish things one's ever seen. For those not in the know, the proper term for dressing and/or making these outfits is "cosplay," and a lot of these folks take it very seriously. Oh, you don't have to wear a costume--I think only one in ten bothers to dress up, but if you want to feel like a celebrity and have your photo taken by hundreds of strangers, it's a good place to do it. Kids absolutely adore this aspect of Fan Expo. ...Probably because all the adults here are just big kids too. Seriously, what six year-old doesn't want to meet Darth Vader?
My sister-in-law is in awe, "This is awesome! People in Toronto are generally cold but here are all these people, who've never met each other, introducing themselves and acting like they're old friends."
The "dealer's room" on Saturday is wall-to-wall people. There's celebrities, rows and rows of comic books, special effects companies, television stations, professional horror make-up artists, T-shirts, DVDs, books, statues, independent movie companies, posters, prop replicas, photographs, giant-screen video game competitions, and the list goes on.
I meet actor Jonathan Frakes, who played Will Riker on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and to my surprise although I didn't like his TV character very much, he's a really cool guy in person. Generally, an autograph and photo with a celebrity will cost you about $20-40. But be warned--some stars charge much more.
I run into my friend Les, who's dressed as Hellboy and has a crowd of people surrounding him for photos. "Where we drinking tonight?," I yell over the people. He yells back, "The Lonestar!!"
Unknown to the casual observer, this convention is much more to nerds than waiting in line wearing Spock ears to get an autograph--it's also their weekend to drink copious amounts and get completely hammered together in the evenings. Months in advance they've Facebooked invites for private parties to each other, during the day they text-message to find out what bar their friends will be at that night.
I first went to Fan Expo last year just to check it out but went back this year because it's a blast and much more fun than a regular weekend just sitting at home. ...And I certainly never expected that I'd make good friends there, but I did. What about all the nerdy women in tight-fitting, sexy costumes? I'll admit it--definite bonus!

Multi-Cultural Festivals: CHIN International Picnic
Experience the lifestyles of cultures from all over the world at this annual festival hosted by CHIN Radio International. Activities include: A bikini contest (female and male), boxing and professional wrestling demonstrations, food sampling, rides, displays, and much more. Held every year on July 1st weekend. Admission is free.

Exhibition Place is on the Toronto lakeshore, a few kilometers west of the central downtown. Every August the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) is held on the grounds, with games and a midway being the primary attraction. The CNE is considered the largest and most successful fair of its kind in the entire North American continent and is an important part of the culture of Toronto and Canada itself. The grounds have been partly protected from further development because of the considerable amount of heritage associated with the annual fair and the many buildings it is held in; several of those buildings are protected.