Dundas West Fest is back again

This year’s Dundas West Fest, a sprawling street festival that runs along Dundas all the way from Ossington over to Lansdowne, returns again on June 7th. The street will be closed the entire day and the festival features multiple stages with great local and international musicians, lots of food and drink from the local restaurants and bars, street shopping from the local stores as well as neighbourhood vendors, plus many other activities and events for the old and young alike.

One of the unique attributes about the Dundas West Fest is the focus on keeping it local. Unlike other street festivals in the city where there are a lot of outside vendors (think sausage stands and carny rides) the organizers from the Dundas West BIA have spent considerable energy to find ways to include as many of the local businesses as they could. They have even made a decision this year to limit the external beer gardens (usually funded or sponsored by beer companies) in favour of focussing on the restaurants, which will expand their patios out to the street.

There’s an enormous amount going on during the day, and we’ve noted a few highlights here:

• Lula Lounge, a great international music venue past Dufferin will have a dedicated stage with a whole lot of world music, including Quique Escamilla, with special guest local politician Andrew Cash, as well as bands too numerous to mention.
• There’s going to be a neighbourhood dance called “Slow Dance – No Excuses” in the St Clarens parkette – Check out and help them out on their Indigogo page as they need some equipment for the festival.
• The Garrison is hosting the stage at Bellwoods Avenue, outside the Beer  Store, with some great Toronto bands including Sheezer (a female Weezer cover band), The Fast Romantics,  The Royal Crowns and many more. Click here to see the schedule.
• Full of Beans will be taking their local music programming outside with performances by Pete Janes, Roman Walte Band, Jeff & Debbie Currie, Mike Mazzei & Friends, Heather Chappell & Vince Peets.
• There’s a full-blown comedy stage taking place west of Dufferin – their Facebook page has details.
• St Christopher House will be hosting an outdoor, giant scrabble game, theatre by Portuguese and Vietnamese seniors, songs for all ages led by youth.
• Dundas West Fest will be the host of a number of ‘Urban Interventions’ happening for the 100 in a day initiative to transform cities, taking place also on June 7th. One of the interventions at the festival is entitled Neighbourhood Fan Mail. Go see what they are working on, and send someone in the neighbourhood a fan letter.
• The Parkdale Flames are coming out to remind people how much fun street hockey is.

The list goes on and on, and we could continue, but the best thing to do is show up, and take a walk down the street and check out all the booth, shops, vendors, and other entertainment on Saturday. Check out their regularly updated Facebook page to stay on top of the new developments, and check out some photos from last year here.

The Dundas West Fest is this Saturday, June 7 from 11am to 10pm.

Look forward to seeing all of you there!

We’ve also posted below, directly from the DundasWestFest website, the stage and show list.