Festival du Voyageur expanding family programming, limiting day passes

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The Festival du Voyageur will be free to kids under 12 for the first time, there’s a new app to map out your visit and sales of day passes will be limited.

Organizers, many dressed in period costume, unveiled programming Tuesday for the 49th annual festival that runs Feb. 16 to 25 at Voyageur Park.

“We are focusing on bringing generations together to celebrate joie de vivre and create lifelong memories,” festival executive director Darrel Nadeau said.

“We want to encourage parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and others with children in their lives to attend the festival as family. That’s a big change for us. We hope to encourage more families to come to festival.”

As an incentive, the festival will have two heated tents this year for children’s programming: one is for music and story telling, the other will have circus-themed activities and a family friendly DJ.

The new tents are in addition to the traditional outdoor activities such as sleigh rides and snowshoeing, plus a new feature with tube slides called the Imagination Playground.

The snow carvers and wood carvers will be back this year, joined by cheese carvers who will compete in the inaugural Bothwell Cheese Carving Competition.

More than 150 musical acts are booked to perform over the 10 days. The local lineup includes Begonia, Bright Righteous, Ca Claque, Jeremie and the Delicious Hounds, Leonard Sumner, Super Duty Tough Work, William Prince and Vikings. National and international artists include Louisiana’s Sweet Crude, Night Moves from Minneapolis, Koriass from Quebec and Shred Kelly from British Columbia.

Concerts at the Voyageur Trading Post at 340 Provencher Blvd. include Klo Pelgag and Faouzia on Feb. 17; Justin Towns Earle and Madeleine Roger Feb. 18; and Royal Canoe, Attica Riots and 3PEAT on the 24th.

In keeping with the family theme, admission is free this year for kids up to age 12. In past years, the free passes were only handed out to kids five years old and under.

The other new policy is the decision to limit day passes in order to reduce lineups and congestion at the park. For the same reason, visitors must also select which day they want to attend. In previous years, people could buy day passes and visit any day.

Organizers did not say how many day passes would be sold, but encouraged people to check out the festival’s new app for details and to buy passes online ahead of time. Full Festival passes are $65 for adults and $30 for youth (13-17) and seniors (60-plus). Day passes are $25 for adults and $15 for youth and seniors.

Passes are also sold at Safeway and Sobey’s locations in Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Steinbach, Selkirk and Gimli. They’re also available by phone at 204-233-2556, the Festival office at 233 Provencher Blvd or online at heho.ca.

Festival du Voyageur is Western Canada’s largest winter festival. It celebrates the city’s unique French heritage and history of the fur-trade, and brings to life the city’s voyageur, Métis and Indigenous roots.

 

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca