Business leaders in Osborne Village are launching a free music festival in the hopes of bringing a large-scale event back to the neighbourhood.

While the lineup has yet to be officially announced, Osborne Village BIZ executive director Zohreh Gervais gave the Free Press an exclusive look at the Village Music Fest, set to take place June 27-28.

The two-day concert series will feature more than 20 bands performing at up to six Village venues, including bars and restaurants. Gervais described the festival as “a nod to Nuit Blanche,” and said it will include an assortment of art installations throughout the neighbourhood.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Osborne Village BIZ executive director Zohreh Gervais: “We want people to see what’s so special about Osborne and celebrate that artistic vibe that we’ve had here forever.”

“It’s going to be a new way to celebrate and to take a look how we are changing and evolving as a community,” Gervais said.

“We want people to see what’s so special about Osborne and celebrate that artistic vibe that we’ve had here forever.”

If successful, it could become a new annual tradition, replacing the former Canada Day block party that once drew thousands into the neighbourhood. The street party, which had closed multiple blocks of Osborne Street, was halted in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not return.

Gervais said the City of Winnipeg will no longer approve the street closures required for the party, and the price tag is prohibitive.

“That’s just not an option for us anymore, unfortunately, so we looked at what we could do to bring some programming to Winnipeg for a weekend that doesn’t have any other stuff happening. On Canada Day, there is so much stuff happening all over the city now,” she said.

Some individual businesses will continue to offer Canada Day events in the Village, she noted.

The festival’s opening day intentionally coincides with Canadian Multiculturalism Day.

“It’s really exciting to be able to look at all the different ways it means to be Canadian, including our incredibly diversity,” Gervais said. “For a lot of us, we just felt like this is a moment to celebrate that as well, in light of everything that’s been going on in the world. We’re excited to be able to be proud of our multicultural identity and to promote that.”

Possible music venues include Osborne Taphouse, the Toad in the Hole, Must be the Place, the Army Navy Air Force club on River Avenue and the Small Mercies Cafe courtyard, she said.

The Village Music Fest budget will likely top out at about $45,000, with support from area Coun. Sherri Rollins and the federal government’s Department of Canadian Heritage, she said.

“The BIZ is doing exactly what it should. Looking at vibrancy, looking at vitality and attracting feet on the ground in Osborne Village for the businesses that it supports,” Rollins said of the music festival.

“They’ve never been afraid of the novel or new in Osborne Village, they have just leaned into it. That’s the magic that happens when you lean into something new sometimes, you rediscover something that is authentically you.”

The BIZ is co-producing the festival with local concert promotion company Real Love Winnipeg and Rylie Saunders, co-founder of the Village Idiots and the booking and marketing manager at Osborne Taphouse.

Saunders hopes hosting festival events inside restaurants and bars will bring a boon for local businesses. The former Canada Day party took place outside of local venues and included street vendors that brick-and-mortar stores were forced to contend with, he said.

“I just want everybody to come down to Osborne Village and, first off, see that it’s alive and doing well,” he said.

“We want everybody from Winnipeg, and everybody from Osborne Village and surrounding areas to come party with us and enjoy some free live music from Winnipeg’s best bands.”

Saunders sits on the BIZ board of directors. He said the loss of the Canada Day block party was felt by everybody in the community, including the businesses that once looked forward to it.

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The number of businesses in the village surged to 141 last year, up from 118 the previous year, the BIZ 2024 annual report said.

A membership survey included in the annual report found half of respondents identified the return of a large-scale summer event as one of their top priorities.

“We hope in the long run we can work with the government and open it up to grow it to the point where it is the street festival again,” Saunders said.

“We are starting with baby steps.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022.  Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.