Oakville Culture Days: What Is On This Weekend
Every Culture Days event in Oakville this weekend is free, and there are enough of them to fill both days. Culture Days runs September 18 to October 4, and Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27 are the busiest stretch of the festival.
Saturday spreads out across town. The Print Expo and Fair runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Howard Iron Works Printing Museum. The Trafalgar Township Historical Society opens the Palermo One Room School House for its agricultural fair, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and artist Tabassum Bhat gives a half-hour talk at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex at 1 p.m. The Oakville Fall Celtic Festival runs both days at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday belongs to Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre, which becomes the festival hub from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. On the schedule: an open rehearsal with the Oakville Symphony, the Kerr Street Big Band, a woodwind quintet from the Oakville Chamber Orchestra, Bharatanatyam and Egyptian bellydance and Chinese folk dance, and live improv from the Oakville Improv Theatre Company.
The hands-on side is the reason to bring kids. Workshops cover cross-stitch, paper-making, print-making, sewing, drama, fibre arts and wood-burning, the ceramics and woodworking studios open their doors, and the centre's new Indigenous Gathering Lodge is open between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. for teachings around the fire. The World of Threads Festival, all contemporary fibre and textile work, is showing in the same building throughout.
There is a reason the calendar is this full. Oakville has been the top participating community in Canada for Culture Days four years running, with more than 150 free programs a year.
Worth picking up first
The Public Art Scavenger Hunt map and the kids' colouring contest sheet are both free at any Town community centre. Bring either one back to a front desk by October 4 at 4 p.m. for stickers and prizes.
None of it costs anything, and most of the Sunday programming is drop-in. Go try something you have never done!
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