Street festivals
A festival held on closed streets or across a district: a street party, a car-free day, a cultural or neighbourhood festival with stages, food and vendors.
A street festival takes over closed streets or a whole district: a cultural festival, a street party or a car-free day, with stages, food and vendors along the way. Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival, first held in 1967, has grown into a major summer event that draws close to two million people.
What it is
The street is the venue: the city closes it, and the festival fills it with stages, food stalls, vendors and people walking. Some are parades with a party around them; others are a block of tents for a weekend.
History, era by era
- 1893
- The Midway Plaisance itself was a street of sorts: a long strip of foreign villages, restaurants and amusements beside the Chicago fair.1
- 1890s
- Street fairs spread across American towns in the 1890s, many played by the first carnival companies.2
- 1967
- Toronto’s Caribbean community held the first Caribana in 1967, as part of Canada’s Centennial, inspired mainly by Trinidad’s pre-Lenten Carnival.3
- Today
- Since 2015 its official name has been the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, and it draws close to two million people a year.3
The midway connection
A street festival is a midway without the rides: a promenade of food, music and stalls. Caribana brings Caribbean foods and folk traditions to the street along with its music and masquerade.3
Wherever people walk a row of booths, the midway is there in some form: the full kind, with rides, games of skill and food joints, or the quieter kind, with craft tables, home baking and a booth like ours. That walk, with family and friends and something to look at every few steps, is what this directory is about.
One fact worth knowing
- Since the late 1980s, groups from Central and South America, Africa, Haiti and elsewhere have joined Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival.3
Questions people ask
When did Caribana start?
In 1967, organized by Toronto’s Caribbean community for Canada’s Centennial.3
Do street festivals have rides?
Some do; most are food, stages and vendors. Early American street fairs often brought a carnival.2
Sources
- Chicago Park District: Midway Plaisance Park. Read on · government
- South End Historical Society: The Origins of the American Traveling Carnival. Read on · reference
- The Canadian Encyclopedia: Caribana. Read on · reference
Short listings from the census
Checked and sourced, but without a full page yet. Each one links to its row on its province or state page.
The Midway Mailbag
New fairs, festivals, midways and attractions as we add them to the directory. About twice a month in fair season, less in winter.
Running a fair, a booth or a fundraiser?
Bring the Machine to your event: sell printed reading tickets, or run the machine on a screen facing the crowd. Reading codes for booths and fundraisers.
All kinds of fairs · Midway Directory
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