Kaleido balloons into major Edmonton festival
If you were driving down 118th Avenue on Monday afternoon, you might have spotted clowns, mimes and tin foil robots, a Renaissance flautist in full regalia, along with Ukrainian dancers and Cuban dancers and belly dancers and ballet dancers and God knows what else. It could be only one thing, of course: The annual media […]
FESTIVAL GUY: Heritage Days expensive, fattening
Is Canada becoming a melting pot? For all the hullabaloo about multiculturalism in Canada, this weekend’s Heritage Festival seemed pretty North American. The festival seemed to serve its product – overpriced food and irrelevant cultural offerings – in a homogenous, inoffensive, stale, typically Canadian package. Meaning: charge too much and make sure it’s deep fried. […]
FESTIVAL GUY: Taste of Edmonton satisfies relish for adventure
Much like Edmonton’s weather, The Taste of Edmonton had become predictable these last few years. Green onion cakes? Can’t not have those. Chocolate covered strawberries? Big seller. Ginger Beef? Can’t miss it. I understand the need to play to the masses. Someone has to like Justin Bieber. But do organizers think that the same 500,000 […]
KOMMENT: Kill K-Days, bring back the Klondike
There were korn dogs, ice kream and Karly Rae Jepsen at K-Days this year – but any evidence of the former Klondike was hidden behind the rustic fences of the park that bears its name. Northlands hasn’t done much with Klondike Park over the years. The place has been there since forever, overlooked by the […]
DEEP FREEZE: Frozen Fringe Festival fantastic fun for frosty folk
If you’re going to put on a winter festival in Edmonton, it is imperative that you have a place for people to get away from the winter – and that’s one of the reasons why it’s so challenging to put on a winter festival in Edmonton. Winter sucks, not to put too fine a point […]
Kaleido festival to transform Alberta Avenue into Fringe of the North
Look up. Look wa-a-a-ay up. Just try not to walk into a lamppost as you are serenaded by live music being played from the rooftops along Alberta Avenue during the Kaleido Family Arts Festival. And that’s just one treat in a cornucopia of artistic endeavours for both enjoyment and participation, running all weekend in and […]
What’s in a name? Edmonton doesn’t have a clue
Edmonton can’t be the only city that has such a boneheaded habit of badly naming and then constantly renaming its festivals, buildings and streets. On July 10, organizers of the Capital Ex festival released the six choices to replace the name Capital Ex, which had in turn had replaced Klondike Days. They are: – EdFest […]
FESTIVAL SCORECARD: Too many festivals? Not enough festivals!
Edmonton is unique amongst Canadian cities in that we have five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall and festival. Festival season is roughly defined as beginning with The Works Art and Design Festival and Edmonton International Jazz Festival in June, and ending with the Symphony Under the Sky near Labour Day. After that, it’s back to […]
WHO NAMED THE BAND: Shuffle Demons to get crazy at jazz fest
The Shuffle Demons don’t actually shuffle. They play funky grooves. And they are not literally malevolent supernatural beings summoned by an evil sorcerer to wreak havoc on helpless humans, though they are perhaps best known for the ritual sacrifice of “Hockey Night in Canada” to the God of Saxophone. Consider this, says band founder Richard […]
Sam Roberts Band to play Capital EX festival
The soon-to-be-ex Capital EX festival is throwing a big rock party in the last year operating under its short-lived name that replaced Klondike Days. A short list of new name suggestions will be released on July 10. Meanwhile, Sam Roberts was announced Thursday as another big headliner at the Telus Stage, playing Saturday, July 21. […]
