Tickets for the 44th annual Festival du Voyageur are selling fast and for good reason. Festival du Voyageur, which literally translates as "festival of the traveler", is Canada's largest, most popular, festival with over 100,000 people in attendance again this year. With hundreds of special events, concerts and workshops occurring over 10 days, ThunderTix is proud to be the Festival du Voyageur's ticketing software of choice. This post looks at the history, the fun and the technology of the Festival du Voyageur.
The World’s Largest Kitchen Party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDD2EXHgFaM
In the Great White North of Manitoba Canada there is a winter festival like no other. The first Festival du Voyageur was held in 1970 and was made possible by a $50,000 government grant. So popular was the event, the original location quickly became too small and a new home was found at Whittier Park where it remains to this day.
The Festival du Voyageur official website explains more about their origins:
This once three-day event, held in Winnipeg’s French Quarter, has evolved into a 10-day province-wide celebration of sights, sounds, snow and spirit. Dubbed “The World’s Largest Kitchen Party”, Festival du Voyageur celebrates the joie de vivre of the fur traders, who established the Red River Colony and the ever-growing French-Canadian community in Western Canada. The spirit and culture of the Voyageur is present in the vibrant community that comes together to celebrate, every February, their history through this event.
Outdoor activities include children's winter playgrounds, the snow bar, and several workshops so attendees can learn the art of snow sculpture for themselves. The Festival du Voyageur may be most well known for its giant frozen sculptures which are on display at night and illuminated with colorful, professional stage lighting.
2013 Festival du Voyageur
Even though the family-friendly event is a celebration of Manitoba's fur trapping roots, which date back to the 15th century, it operates using the most modern technologies.
Hundreds of individual events, indoors and out, are schedule this year, so to help attendees manage their schedule the festival have released an official iPhone app. Shane Gibson notes that the app compliments this year's theme - "Find your place in history" - with a complete schedule and interactive maps that show each venue. Gibson spoke to festival executive Irina Ivanov Bissonnette about the 21st century tool:
"We usually have a paper guide with all the programming but this is the trend right now. Everyone does everything on their phones."
In addition to offering an official iPhone app, the Festival du Voyageur is making excellent use of all the social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will be the go to sources for official updates as well as a way to take part in the overall experience - even if you are not actually there. The festival's website is also a rich resource with extensive information, tips and curated lists of events.
One type of event that has always been a part of the Festival du Voyageur is a live music concert. The line-up for 2013 includes electronic pop band 'Lost Weekend', who were the toast of the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin Texas. The complete list of concerts is beyond the scope of this blog post.
Proudly serving Canada ...and you!
Tickets for the Festival du Voyageur's hundreds of concerts and activities at myriad venues, are being sold with ThunderTix's technology. Our festival plan serves the needs of Canada's biggest festival and can serve your needs too. Doesn't matter if your event is as big as the Festival du Voyageur, or an intimate gathering of a few friends, or anything in between, our online ticketing software scales to fit.
The ThunderTix festival plan used by Festival du Voyageur includes features like sophisticated barcode ticket printing and scanning, plus the ability to sell advertising space on the PDF Print-at-Home ticket. As with all ThunderTix plans, we do not charge you per-ticket fees! If you would like to see just how much money that can potentially save you, you are encouraged to "do the math" and see for yourself with the online ticket fee calculator.