'Smiling, happy, and well-fed': Taste of Edmonton festival to exceed 2019 attendance
Taste of Edmonton organizers and vendors celebrated the last day of the annual festival with high spirits.
Donovon Vienneau, Taste of Edmonton general manager, said the festival had a strong showing with attendance expected to be higher than in 2019 – the last time the festival was celebrated before pandemic cancellations. The festival saw 250,000 people attend in 2019.
According to Vienneau, the festival will beat those numbers this year after attendance from Sunday is included in the tally.
“Lots of great energy around,” he said. “Seeing smiling, happy, and well-fed Edmontonians coming to Taste of Edmonton was absolutely spectacular.”
Vienneau said this year was one of the driest festivals in recent memory – only six hours of rain happened throughout the event.
“It’s been a lot of years since we’ve had a dry Taste of Edmonton.”
He added that while the festival has been running for 37 years, the COVID-19 pandemic presented new challenges never faced before.
“We endured and got through it,” Vienneau said. “We are happy Edmontonians came out in droves.
“We’ve got a lot of takeaways that we are going to take from this year and still have in 2022 and beyond.”
More than 1,000 volunteers helped bring the event to fruition this year. Vienneau said the event team is already planning for next year’s event.
“We look forward to seeing everybody back on July 21 to 31, 2022.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.