Victoria’s Luminara Festival Lights Up Beacon Hill Park

If anyone doubts that Victoria, BC, is one of the most romantic cities in the world, he or she should visit during the annual Luminara Festival, held each year in Beacon Hill Park and St. Ann’s Academy grounds near downtown. This year the festival will be held from 5:00 to 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 25th.

Luminara Victoria is a lantern festival inspired by the many festivals of light held in countries around the world. This unique and inspired cultural event enhances community development by bringing groups and individuals around the region together in a creative celebration, to build social capital and community cohesiveness.

This is the tenth year of the festival. The event is sponsored by the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA), a unique non-profit organization that combines arts and social services to address the needs of immigrants and to promote the embracing of cultural diversity in the Victoria community.

In the months leading up to the festival organizers run a series of workshops throughout the community, where participants learn to build lanterns based on a range of cultural influences, and work with artists to create larger lantern installations. Workshop participants and people from the community, as well as visitors throng to the event, many carrying lanterns of their own making.

Costumed characters, musicians, acrobats and performers are lit by the light of thousands of lanterns, including large-scale installation pieces which are spread throughout Beacon Hill Park. The process of creating the event and the event itself involve people of all ages, cultural backgrounds and artistic abilities. Handmade lanterns, candlelit installations, elaborate costumes, musicians and performers will once again infuse the landscape with a captivating blend of light and shadow, colour and form.

For more information about Luminara Victoria, contact ICA at 250-388-4728.

Victoria BC 14th Annual Vancouver Island Blues Bash Starts Friday

This Labour Day weekend kicks off the 14th annual Vancouver Island Blues Bash at Ship Point on the Inner Harbour, a celebration of Blues and R&B music with afternoon free and evening ticketed performances. Featured are more than 14 individual bands who will perform over three afternoons and three evenings.

Blues in all shades for your soul will be featured, including Jim Byrnes’ House of Refuge, Lloyd Jones Struggle, Bill Johnson Blues Band, The Midnights, Auntie Kate and The Uncles of Funk and many more!

Price: Ticketed Shows: On sale Thursday, August 7, 2008. Jim Byrnes’ House of Refuge: Friday, August 29 - 7:30pm $22.00. Also ticket combo for both Jim Byrnes’ House of Refuge and Lloyd Jones Struggle only $30.00. Ticket combo (one ticket per show) only available through the Victoria Jazz Society office.

The Annual Blues Bash also presents three afternoons of free admission performances: Saturday, Aug. 30 12:30 – 5:00pm, Sunday, Aug. 31 12:30 – 8:00pm and Monday, Sept. 1 12:30 – 6:00pm.
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Victoria BC Fringe Festival Offers 400 Performances August 21-31

The 22nd Annual Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival will run August 21- 31, 2008. The Fringe is an unjuried, uncensored, international festival of live comedy, drama, dance, spoken word, and more.

Companies are selected by lottery in November. Anyone with a show can apply. In 2007, 16,000 people came to the Victoria Fringe and hundreds volunteered to help make it happen.The Victoria Fringe Festival is one of 23 fringes in Canada and operates under the Canadian Association of Fringe Festival‘s 4 principles: unjuried, festival participation is on a first come, first served basis; no censorship; 100% of the box office is returned to the artists; and, accessibility to all artists.

You may see anything at fringe; dramas, comedy, dance, stand up….even some things that may
make you say, “What the fringe was that?”

The Fringe Festival serves as a playground for artists, with some works getting picked up for
professional runs. The Drowsy Chaperone, Urtinetown, MacHomer and One Man Star Wars
Trilogy (by local playwright, Charles Ross) all started at the fringe and later hit the big time!
Come join 20,000 of your closest friends and 250 volunteers to celebrate this cultural explosion
in downtown Victoria. This year the Victoria Fringe runs from August 21 ? 31 with 11 venues,
50 international companies and more than 400 performances.

Getting to Victoria BC, Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands

The main way to get to Vancouver Island and Victoria from Canada is via BC Ferries, 1-888-223-3779, which operates a ferry from Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) to Swartz Bay, a half hour drive north of Victoria. Cost is about $50 for a car and a little over $12 per person (more in peak season, and rising with fuel surcharges) each way. Payment can be made by cash or credit card, and debit cards can be used at an automatic ticket terminal for foot passengers, but not on the ferry or at the vehicle toll booths. Service runs on the odd hours between 7am and 9pm during the winter (with extra sailings at busier times) and every hour during the summer. The ferry ride is 1 hour 35 minutes. Reservations are never required, but recommended for vehicles during peak travel times, including weekends throughout the summer months. There is a $15 charge for reservations if made 7 days in advance; $17.50 if less than 7 days. Vehicles sometimes have to show up a few hours before they can actually board (there can be multiple sailing waits during peak travel times), so make sure that you check the website to see what the wait is, and make sure that you allow plenty of time to catch your sailing; as the ferry’s capacity is usually limited by the amount of space on the car decks, foot passengers can usually get on if they show up 15-20 minutes before their sailing. To get to the ferry take bus number 424 from Vancouver Airport to Airport Station and then change to bus number 620. Keep $3.25 CAD in change (per person) for this.

The second way to take a ferry to Victoria is via Washington State Ferries, +1-206 464-6400, which operates a passenger vehicle ferry between Anacortes and Sidney (about half an hour from Victoria) through the San Juan Islands. Passenger or pedestrian fare is US$16 each way, vehicle fare is $42.95 (increases to $53.70 May-October). This service does not operate during the winter season, generally from the second week of January until the end of March. The ferry system prefers that you make reservations via its website or by calling ahead.

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