As long as the weather cooperates, organizers of two major Edmonton summer festivals starting this week are expecting to attract large crowds.
The annual K-Days and the Taste of Edmonton events have taken over the Edmonton Expo Centre and Exhibition Grounds and Sir Winston Churchill Square, respectively, and combined are looking to draw more than one-million people.
K-Days, which starts on Friday, drew about 700,000 to the 10-day summer fair last year while Taste of Edmonton attracted 305,000 people. Both are expecting similar if not better numbers in 2023.
“What we’re looking to do is continue to evaluate what resonates with Edmontonians and visitors to our event,” said Arlindo Gomes, vice-president of business development and venues management for Explore Edmonton. “We are pushing to introduce more new things over the next few years.”
K-Days features many of the same midway rides and attractions as it has in the past – minus the recently dismantled Kiwanis slide following 49 years of use – but with major additions that include the Monster, a large inflatable obstacle course for people aged 11-plus.
The evening concert lineup each night features notable artists past and present such as Shawn Desman, Quiet Riot, Three Days Grace and Elijah Woods, while 29 vendors are introducing new food choices such as falafel perogies, ketchup and mustard ice cream, and a cherry Kool-Aid chicken burger.
Taste of Edmonton has ambitions of attracting 350,000 people this year. More than 150 restaurants, catering outfits and food trucks – 16 of them new to the event -- are offering more than 160 menu items at the four-day festival that started Thursday.
Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, addressing increased downtown safety efforts, said the city is “adding more resources to (attract) more people” and would “like to see more activities” beyond the 50 festivals Edmonton hosts each year.
“Culture, and food in particular … is a way to build a community,” Sohi said Thursday morning at the start of the festival. “When you share food together, when you break bread together, you bring down barriers. You start a conversation, and you allow people to share in a way that we end up building a better city, a better community, a more welcoming and inclusive place for all of us.”
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Marek Tkach and Evan Klippenstein
