Festival of Friends

The Festival of Friends
A seated audience at The Festival of Friends
Genre	Music Festival
Dates	Second Weekend in August
Location(s)	Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Years active	1976–present
Attendance	250,000–300,000
Website
Official website

The Festival of Friends is an annual three-day free summer music festival held the first weekend after the Civic Holiday in August. Formerly located at Gage Park in Hamilton, Ontario, 2011 saw the event move to the Ancaster Fairgrounds, at Trinity Church Road. In 2016, organizers announced that the festival will move back to Gage Park starting in 2017. It is the largest annual event of its kind in Canada and is a major tourism draw for the region with regular weekend attendance in excess of 250,000.

Festival of Friends was started in 1976 by artist Bill Powell Jr. as an independent folk festival in Hamilton's Gage Park. Performers for the first event at Gage Park included Willie P. Bennett, Ray Materick, Brent Titcomb, Noel Harrison, Stan Rogers and Jesse Winchester. Over the next 35 years, the festival continued annually in Gage Park, and evolved into a showcase for arts and music featuring musicians, crafters, and food from across the globe. Over the years Canadian acts such as Bruce Cockburn, Ken Whiteley, Jackie Washington, Burton Cummings, Scott Merritt, Tom Wilson and Randy Bachman appeared. After 25 years as director, Powell retired in 2000. Doug MacArthur, and Powell`s wife Lynne directed the event until Loren Lieberman became its long-term General Manager in 2003.

In January 2011, the Festival of Friends announced that it would be moving from its current home, in Gage Park, to a new permanent home at the Ancaster Fairgrounds. The City of Hamilton had concerns about street parking, as well as possible damage to the trees in the park.

As of 2017, the festival will move back to Gage Park. In 2016, organizers announced that the festival will move back to the original location. In a statement, organizers explained that in 2011 "the Festival of Friends was forced to move to Ancaster for a myriad of reasons – including unresponsive leadership at city hall, as well as issues of access in Gage Park. In the past few months, changes at city hall have made it possible for the Festival of Friends to negotiate solutions to many of the concerns that necessitated our exit." At the time, city councillor Bernie Morelli stated that the festival had outgrown the park. Festival-goers however felt the new location was too out-of-the way compared to the centrally-located Gage Park.