Last year, Q and I decided to head down to Granville Island to check out the Vancouver International Children’s festival. I remember checking out the festival as a kid with my family, but last year was the first time I had checked it out since becoming a parent.
It was a bit of a trek for us, but when we got there, as soon as Q saw the colours, and the activities, the long drive was forgotten. We wandered into the festival grounds, and Q was in his glory. He wanted to check out all of the activities, and watched the performers in awe. He loved the music, the stories, and all of the stations that he could try. He learned a bit about Chinese calligraphy, had his name written in Chinese, and colored the character for ‘bird’. A year later, we still have that picture. He decorated a wish house and put it in the village, and selected another one to take home. He watched the one man band, danced to the drumming, and listened to the story telling.
He especially loved the music zone, where he got to play the giant wind chimes, make music while pedaling a bike (even though he was a bit too small to do it for long), and, of course, the percussion area. We decided to catch a show while we were there too, which was an extra ticket cost, but was fantastic. We saw a group of young hip hop dancers, which he thought was awesome. I think that he would have been just as happy if we had spent the whole day in the activity zone, but it was fun. He also really loved the play area for the little people, with it’s water table, train tracks and tunnel, to name a few things.
I’m looking forward to checking it out with him again this year, and hope to spend even more time exploring.
A bit about the festival: The Vancouver International Children’s Festival (VICF), presented by Coast Capital Savings, is setting the stage for its 36th annual event, taking place May 27 – June 2 on Granville Island. Professional performing artists from Norway, Africa, Germany and Canada will be performing 12 shows in six Granville Island venues, including four indoor and two outdoor Festival environments. In addition, the Festival hosts over 15 hands-on arts activities such as shadow puppetry, an outdoor weaving sculpture, bicycle spin-art, origami, a sock puppet workshop, circus skills, the Twist & Toddle play area and much, much more.
Highlights of this year’s Festival include the North American premiere of Sparrow – a show from Norway that is created specifically for babies and tots (7 to 24 months old); the Canadian debut of Cirque Zuma Zuma – the African acrobats who were thrust into stardom performing on America’s Got Talent; the multi-media sensation Queen of Colours, which blends shadow puppetry, live music, painting and video projection into a theatrical performance; and four special evening performances including two Pyjama Nights. Tickets for featured performances are $25 per adult, $15 per child including tax and service charges, with exceptions for Sparrow ($25 adult, $5 child) and the Variety Show ($25 adult, $22 child). Show tickets include access to all hands-on arts activities so come for a show but stay for the whole day! For access to hands-on arts activities only: purchase an Activity Wristband for $8 per person (sold onsite only).
I’m excited to be able to give away a family pass of 4 activity wristbands for a lucky One Crazy Kid reader. All you have to do is leave a comment below about what you would most like to check out at the Children’s festival this year. To earn an extra entry, follow One Crazy Kid on Facebook, or Twitter. You can also sign up to receive new posts by email, on the side of the page. For each thing you do, leave a comment to let me know you’ve done it, and you’ll get another entry. Also make sure you leave me n email address that I can contact you at if you are the winner! Good luck!
Be quick, though, as this giveaway will end at 6:59pm on Thursday May 23rd.
Update: And the winner (thanks to Random.org) is…
True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 14
Result: 4
Lori! Congratulations Lori! Enjoy the festival.
*I received a pack of activity wristbands in exchange for helping out the VICF, but I wouldn’t let you know about it if I didn’t really love it. All opinions are my own.












