FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2007
Toronto’s favourite festival offers fun for the whole family
July 28, 2007, TORONTO – Toronto’s favourite street festival has a whole new way to celebrate the fun and flavours of Greece and summer in the city.
As last year’s Krinos Taste of the Danforth festival came to a close, a poll released by Decima showed that 90 per cent of respondents identified Taste as their favorite GTA festival event -- beating out the Toronto International Film Festival, Caribana and Pride Week from an audience perspective.
“The seed for this festival was planted 14 years ago when local businesses were looking for a way to attract attention to the community – there were only a few tables of food and some local musicians,” says Alex Alexakis, Krinos Vice President of Canadian Operations. “Now it’s the largest Greek festival outside of Greece, attracting over one million visitors from around the world.”
The GTA lays claim to more than 200,000 residents of Greek ancestry, the third largest Hellenic community outside Greece and between August 10 and 12, 2007, everyone who comes to the Danforth gets to be Greek for the day.
This year’s Krinos Taste of the Danforth has loads of new features and activities to engage and entertain the entire family:
- The Celebrity Stage, presented by the Toronto Star, will include demonstrations by Citytv’s CityLine chef and celebrity restaurateur, Michael Bonacini, PLUS a performance by Kevin Brauch, the hugely popular host of the shows “Thirsty Traveler” and "Iron Chef America," where he will perform stunts such as Sabretage - slashing open a bottle of champagne with a chef’s saber -- while blindfolded.
- The Celebrity Stage at the new Taste will also offer a “Taste of Broadway” – with live performances from the cast of We Will Rock You, Menopause Out Loud, Evil Dead: The Musical, Much Ado About Nothing and Second City (performing a hilarious set of improvised themes, songs and games, all based on audience suggestions). In addition, visitors will be treated to live musical performances by Frank D’Angelo & The Steelback 2-4 – and much more.
- The Greek Stage will feature traditional Greek dancers (such as Troup Naditu, Levendia X and Arabesque) and musicians (such as Exodos, Parea, Galaxy and the Yianis Kapoulas Band).
- The Sports Zone will include events created by each of Toronto’s professional sports teams. There is a Maple Leafs’ Slap Shot Machine, a Raptors’ interactive basketball court, a Toronto FC kicking station and soccer zone where you can actually play a game, the Argos Football Toss, Toronto Blue Jays pitching and batting cages, a Toronto Rock lacrosse shooting game (plus meet your favourite Rock players), the Toronto Marlies goal-tending skills game and lots more chances for people to test their skills and win fun prizes.
- The Olympiada, presented by the Toronto Star, will include Pythagoras' Chess Challenge (a life-size chess game), a climbing wall hosted by ‘Outward Bound,’ the Medusa area with a live reptile show, Greek pottery hosted by ‘The Clay Room’ where children of all ages will have an opportunity to paint their own pottery using Greek themes, two volleyball courts (one for adults and one for children) – and much more.
- The D'Angelo Pavilion will feature the fantastic feats of The Zero Gravity Circus' Amazing Aerial Acrobats.
- And to cool off, visitors can bring their skates to the ‘Blades of Glory,’ an immense street-wide ice rink on the Danforth where they can enjoy the unique experience of ice skating in summer.
The 2006 Krinos Taste of the Danforth welcomed over million people and organizers are expecting record crowds again in 2007. Full details on this year’s Krinos Taste of the Danforth can be found at www.toronto.com/TasteOfTheDanforth.
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For more information contact:
Howard Lichtman
416-402-4948
howard@lightning-group.com
