Celebrate Toronto Street Festival

Toronto, Canada – The Celebrate Toronto Street Festival transforms five major intersections along the world’s longest street, Yonge Street, into a world-class, free one-of-a-kind festival. Scheduled for July 4 – 6, 2003, the multi award-winning Celebrate Toronto Street Festival honors the city’s rich culture and diversity with spectacular performances by local, national and international artists. The festival draws more than one million revellers each year. It is the only celebration of its kind with over 500,000 square feet of entertainment, 12 stages, more than 1200 performers and 750 things to see and do. This festival is one of the hottest gatherings of talent in the nation with non-stop concerts, dance, daring thrill and spectacle shows, children’s entertainment and much more.

The sites for 2003 are:
Celebrate Downtown @ Dundas
Audiences can celebrate the energy of Toronto’s vibrant downtown core – including Yonge Dundas Square – with thrill shows, extreme sports and non-stop new and classic rock concerts.

Celebrate the World @ Bloor
With one stage featuring traditional world music and dance, and another dedicated to Toronto’s urban music scene, the main intersection on the longest street in the world celebrates the diversity that is the heart and soul of this city.

Celebrate the Arts @ St. Clair
This festival site showcases Toronto’s rich arts and cultural-entertainment scene featuring jazz, big band, opera and orchestral concerts along with street theatre, dance and visual arts.

Celebrate Central @ Eglinton
Home to Friday night’s opening ceremonies, the largest site of the festival features great big entertainment for all tastes and ages with an eclectic mix of music – roots, rock and pop – breathtaking spectacle, interactive sports and the glitz of a giant midway.

Celebrate Kids @ Lawrence
This north end site is the perfect family destination featuring the best in children’s performers including music, dance, theatre, fantastic family attractions, make-and-take crafts, a giant inflatable playground and so much more.

The 2003 Celebrate Toronto Street Festival also marks the launch of Summerlicious. Modelled after the hugely successful Winterlicious, Toronto’s first annual restaurant week, this summer program will run from July 4 – 10, 2003. Each of the 50 participating restaurants will offer a special three-course prix fixe menu where patrons can sample the establishment’s tasty fare. The menus are available at lunch and dinner and have one of two price categories: $10 for lunch and $20 for dinner or $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner (some restrictions may apply).

Celebrate Toronto Street Festival begins on Friday, July 4 at 8 p.m. at the intersection of Yonge and Eglinton with the incredible opening ceremonies setting the stage for a full weekend of fantastic music, vibrant dance, breathtaking thrill shows and more. The festival continues throughout the weekend at all five festival sites, open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 5 and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, July 6 (Yonge and Lawrence gets started at 10 a.m.).

Tourists to Toronto can contact the Tourism Toronto call centre at 1-877-342-0243 for more information on this and other events in the city.

Admission to the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival is FREE and getting there couldn’t be easier. All five festival sites are accessible via the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Festival subway stops on the Yonge line are Dundas, Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton and Lawrence stations.

For more information on the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival and other events produced by Toronto Special Events, call Access Toronto at 416-338-0338 or visit www.toronto.ca/special_events.