Event Details

Founded in 2013 as an initiative of the hardcore punk band Fucked Up, Long Winter is a seasonal all-ages, pay-what-you-can series of local music and art, presented with the lowest possible barriers to access. Featuring over 200 local artists/collectives and welcoming 5,000+ participants over five monthly events, Long Winter animates multiple rooms on multiple floors, transforming spaces into immersive, collaborative environments. Programming includes performance art, theatre and dance, large-¬scale sculptural installations, projections (single and dual screen videos, still images), visual installations (print, painting, photography collage), and interactive presentations including original video games by local programmers. An eclectic mix of live acts perform across multiple rooms on multiple floors, to facilitate maximum collision between genres, scenes, artists, and audiences. Initially housed at the Great Hall on Queen Street West, Long Winter has presented at venues ranging from the Gladstone Hotel, to the Hearn Generating Station (as part of Luminato), to the Galleria Mall.

Funding will support the marketing of Long Winter's expanded 2019-2020 season + international festival: a series of seven music-focused, multi-arts events taking place in various multi-room venues in Toronto from November 2019 to November 2020. The project will feature over 250 artists, drawn primarily from the Greater Toronto Area. The highlight of the project will be a two-night, multi-venue festival weekend co-programmed with Collectif MU/La Station, an alternative music presenter from Paris bringing a roster of Parisian artists to Toronto. The fest is the second part of a two-event, binational exchange between MU (Paris) and Long Winter (Toronto), with a focus on local underground music and art scenes. 2019-2020 dates and venues include: November 22 (Tranzac), December 13 (Harbourfront), January 11 (Gladstone), February 21 (Workman Arts), March 21 (Workman Arts), with the international festival November 21-22, 2020.