Huge Toronto street festival will send off the summer with a bang

Aug 16 2023, 4:16 pm

Summer is drawing to a close, but the upcoming Ossington Summer Send-Off will offer one last chance to soak in the magic of Toronto festival season.

The Ossington BIA will be hosting a final summer bash next month to close out the season, a sort of encore presentation of the BIA’s popular OssFest event, which celebrated its sixth year on July 22.

The Ossington Summer Send-Off will again take over the thoroughfare for one more day on Saturday, September 9, shutting down the stretch between Queen Street West and Dundas Street West to vehicle traffic for a pedestrian takeover.

The BIA describes the event as “a low-key OssFest,” adding that the Summer Send-Off is “a day meant to encourage curiosity to be explored, try some new restaurants, pop into a shop that you have always wondered about.”

It was the popularity of OssFest that drove demand for this bonus street festival. The BIA notes that many attendees and businesses have said, “Ossington Avenue would be the perfect street to pedestrianize for a day or two, or better yet, every weekend!”

Pedestrians have the City of Toronto’s Main Street Innovation Fund to thank for this one-day festival, a program that offers local BIAs up to $50,000 in grants for projects that support local business communities’ recoveries after the arduous days of the pandemic.

Jack LandauJack Landau

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