What’s up: Flatlanders beverage festival; Holi; KidsFest; Emergence art exhibit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/06/2025 (483 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Flatlander’s Beer & Beverage Festival

• Canada Life Centre, 300 Portage Ave.
• Friday, 7-10 p.m.; Saturday, 1-4 p.m. and 7-10 p.m.
• Tickets: $58 at Ticketmaster

Organizers of Winnipeg’s largest beer festival have embraced drinks beyond lagers and ales, and have tweaked the fest’s name and layout in response.

The Flatlander’s Beer & Beverage Festival (formerly known as the Flatlander’s Beer Festival) takes place Friday and Saturday at the Canada Life Centre. The layout for this year’s event will make finding the right drink for you relatively simple: the large “beverage” component of the fest (coolers, ciders, ready-to-drink canned cocktails, hard iced teas and the like) will occupy the ice-level area of the arena, while beers will be poured around the concourse, with local, national and international sections for beer lovers to navigate.

About a dozen locals will be among drinks producers pouring their wares, including Farmery, Good Neighbour, One Great City, Shrugging Doctor and Hector’s Hard (coolers made by Fort Garry Brewing Co.). Food trucks will be set up along Donald Street, accessible to guests of the fest.

Tickets are $58 for the Saturday matinee tasting, or $63 for the Friday or Saturday night event. There’s also a VIP option for Friday night that gets you in the door at 6 p.m., along with some eats and a swag bag; tickets are $89. A $25 designated-driver ticket is also available at the box office.

Proceeds benefit the True North Youth Foundation.

— Ben Sigurdson

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Holi Festival of Colours

• Assiniboia Downs, 3975 Portage Avenue
• Saturday, 4-9 p.m.
• Tickets: $23, available online

The Hindu festival of colour Holi is typically celebrated in March to mark the beginning of spring.

The event at Assiniboia Downs makes its return to Winnipeg after being postponed last month.

The festival is traditionally celebrated with singing, dancing and the throwing of vibrantly coloured powder, so prepare to be doused in rainbow hues as people fling gulal — bright powders and water — at everyone in their vicinity.

Ticket price includes one packet of powder.

Organizers recommend wearing sunglasses to prevent powder from entering the eyes.

The event also features DJs and food trucks.

— AV Kitching

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KidsFest

• The Forks
• Today and Friday, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Tickets: $17 at the KidsFest website

There’s plenty of family-friendly entertainment to be found at The Forks this week during the annual KidsFest hosted by the Winnipeg International Children’s Festival.

The party kicks off at 10 a.m. today with a showcase of Francophone performers, including local singer-songwriter Micah Baribeau, a.k.a Micah!, and Montreal theatre duo Les Soeurs Kif Kif.

And just like the cat who couldn’t stay away, Fred Penner hits the stage today with encore concerts Saturday and Sunday.

Audiences can also enjoy repeat appearances by Jessee Havey and the Banana Band, Lisa Odjig, Ruploops, Whipped Up and the Street Circus.

There will be opportunities to try out the trapeze and other circus moves during interactive workshops.

Performances and activities take place at the CN Stage and field and Manitoba Theatre for Young People.

Advance tickets can be used for any day of the festival. Children two years and younger get in free.

— Eva Wasney

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Emergence Art Exhibit Opening

• Graffiti Gallery, 109 Higgins Ave.
• Friday, 6-7 p.m.
• Free

The Graffiti Gallery is Winnipeg’s unsung gateway to international hip-hop culture, regularly hosting top-tier breakdancers and graffiti artists as mentors and guest presenters.

It’s also a tireless champion of inner-city youth and emerging Winnipeg artists, offering thousands of young people free dance, art and music workshops every year.

In that spirit, the warehouse gallery presents Emergence, a showcase of six recent University of Manitoba fine art graduates: Sydney Caldwell, Colleen Simard, Sharyn Gutierrez, Mae Desmond, Margot Morrish and Maria Martin.

According to the gallery, the exhibited works explore “themes of masculinity, migration, consumerism, Indigenous futurism and emotional landscapes.”

This being a GG show, you know there’ll be music — in this case, courtesy of DJ Majuice.

— Conrad Sweatman

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2025 MFA Thesis Exhibitions

• School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, 180 Dafoe Rd.
• To June 20
• Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. or by appointment

Say you saw them when.

The MFA Thesis Exhibitions, held annually in the spring in the School of Art Gallery, showcase the work of graduating master of fine arts students.

The six emerging artists that compose this year’s crop — Maryam Bagheri, Laila Fazal, Xianghui Guan, Frankie May, Netsanet Shawl and Lisha Wang — work across diverse disciplines, including installation, performance, painting, sculpture, ceramics and video to explore ideas of perception, identity, gendered labour, memory and place.

Don’t delay: the exhibition is only on view for two more weeks.

— Jen Zoratti

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Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

• The Fire Door (4th floor -421 Mulvey Ave. E.)
• Friday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

What would a bird write if it held a permanent marker in its mouth? It’s a question Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber asked and answered in their 2013 series Animals With Sharpies. Since meeting at the University of Manitoba in the mid-1990s, the creative collaborators and founding members of the Royal Art Lodge collective have specialized in similar artistic match games, juxtaposing relatable original text and image to cultivate repetitive surprise, empathy, hope and delight.

Their shared Instagram, @m_d_n_f, is a daily balm against global negativity. “I’ve got the fetch, if you’ve got the stick,” a golden retriever thinks, or we think he thinks, in a piece shared last month.

Considered two of the country’s leading contemporary artists, the duo’s work will be on display and available for sale at the South Osborne art hub Fire Door beginning Friday with a public opening. After that, appointments to see what’s available can be made by emailing fire_door@yahoo.com.

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