THUNDER BAY – Thousands of people made their way to Bay & Algoma over the weekend for the grand return of the Thunder Bay Buskers Festival.
The 2023 Buskers Festival returned with a massively successful weekend after being put on hold since 2019 due to the COVID 19 pandemic according to Emily Shandruk, one of the organizers.
“It's been going amazing,” she said. “Yesterday was packed with so many amazing performers, audiences for them the vendors had a great day and again the weather plays a huge part and we're having another fantastic.”
The free to attend event was filled with many different types of vendors and, of course, street performers, many of whom discovered their love of performing during the lock-down according to Shandruk.
“A lot of our performers weren't actually live performers before the pandemic,” she said.
“I think a lot of people discovered, you know, a hobby could actually be a little bit more and you know, now they're able to showcase and maybe you'll see them, you know, at a local pub or a restaurant or something coming up and you'll be like, oh, hey, I saw you at the Buskers Festival.”
Angela Foreman, a member of the Kaminari Wan Taiko drum group, said that her and her group were thrilled with the opportunity to perform.
“It's fabulous, it's nice to be outdoors, the weather held out for us, that was nice. It didn't rain, we can't play if it rains or if it's too, too humid, but yeah, it was great,” she said. “The organizers of the festival did a fantastic job and it's such a great community to perform in front of.”
With the success of the 2023 Buskers Festival, Shandruk said that organizers are excited to continue the festival next year.
"We would love to. I think, you know, the neighbourhood really embraced it and clearly both people locally and regionally,” she said.
“We're hoping that, you know, we have some of our visitors south of the border also come up and I think with, you know, just all the positive feedback we've got, we couldn't not do it again next year.”
