SesquiFest celebrating Canada 150 begins in downtown London

Canada 150 celebrations have officially taken over downtown London.

Residents are invited to enjoy five days of free activities for SesquiFest, which gets underway Thursday.

The stage at Talbot and Dundas will feature different musical performances each day including local talent and headliners Hollerado, Fefe Dodson, and Sloan.

Each of the five days of SesquiFest will be programmed around a different theme:

• Thursday, June 29: Talbot Street Takeover will spotlight the best emerging local musical talent.
• Friday, June 30: Best of Ontario Day will highlight the achievements of one of Canada’s founding provinces with Ontario food, music, art and so much more.
• Saturday, July 1: Canada 150 Day will create a massive Canada Day celebration set to the backdrop of the Harris Park fireworks.
• Sunday, July 2: Centennial ’67 Day will look back to Canada’s Centennial with francophone acts, Montreal-based artists and performers, and a Caribbean Block Party.
• Monday, July 3: Best of London Day will close SesquiFest, giving Londoners a chance to show off local creativity, innovation, and talent.

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Canada 150 London co-ordinator Lia Karidas tells AM980 the festival will also feature multicultural events, beer gardens, a food truck alley, a kids zone and more.

“It’s going to be massive and that’s no question,” she said. “You just have to imagine the downtown core completely igniting for five days and that always has a positive impact for anyone that wants to see their city be engaged and animated.”

SESQUI will be a must-see attraction — the virtual reality dome stationed in the Budweiser Gardens parking lot will take visitors on a virtual reality journey across Canada.

“This is a 360-degree immersive cinematic experience,” Karidas said. “You go in the dome, you look around you, you see Canada for half an hour with this amazing film called ‘Horizon’ produced out of Toronto, and this is one of the free experiences on site.”

While in the Budweiser Gardens parking lot, residents can take part in in a quintessentially Canadian pastime.

“You can actually go ice skating outdoors, which is something that we’re really excited about,” Karidas said. “We’ve got an outdoor synthetic ice winter wonderland ice rink.”

Several streets downtown will be closed to vehicular traffic until Tuesday at noon.

For more information on everything that’s happening, click here.