Hamilton’s Festival of Friends is back after 2-year hiatus

Hamilton’s Festival of Friends is back after a two-year hiatus with a full three-day lineup of acts including Serena Ryder and Monster Truck.

The outdoor event at Gage Park returns after COVID-19 restrictions mothballed the possibility of 2020 and 2021 gatherings.

Organizer Robert Rakoczy says the latest event has 30 per cent more vendors than the last festival two years ago.

“We are the second-largest gathering of vendors in Ontario … other than the CNE,” Rakoczy told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton.

“We’ve got an additional stage this year, an acoustic stage, very much like a campfire stage. No electrification, just the performer.”

Ryder will headline the main stage Friday night with the Juno-nominated Ryland James lending support.

Monster Truck will headline Saturday’s lineup while George Canyon and Gord Bamford round out the event Sunday night with the event’s traditional country music offering.

The festival will also host a one-day celebration of Indigenous arts, which Rakoczy says is part of a spotlight on First Nations musicians.

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“We felt like one of the things that have been underrepresented at the festival would be Indigenous music,” said Rakoczy.

Free spots have been given to vendors with an Indigenous background within the marketplace for Saturday.

More than two dozen Indigenous crafters have taken up that opportunity as National Indigenous History Month closes at the end of July.

The festival, which kicked off in 1976, has grown into a multi-stage spectacle over the years, drawing as many as 200,000 people over the course of three days in late July.

Rakoczy admits the last couple of years amid the pandemic have been tough, even to the point of wondering if it would ever happen again.

“I’m worried about my own job, but more importantly, it’s this 45-year-old institution that Hamilton knows and loves,” Rakoczy remarked.

“I’m trying to make sure … and our board is trying to make sure it weathers all of this so that we can put this thing on for another 45 years.”

A full schedule of events can be seen at festivaloffriends.ca

Admission is free all weekend.