Supercrawl – James Street North, Hamilton, Ontario

This weekend (September 14-15), Hamilton transformed a long stretch of James Street North into a concert and street party venue. For a day and a half the street was closed to cars to allow thousands of music and art lovers to enjoy Supercrawl. The festival hosted dozens of musical acts on four stages and filled the neighbourhood with drama, dance and visual arts installations and performances. Organized busking stages collected money for Warchild, the charity Supercrawl chose to sponsor at this year’s event.

Highlights for me: Terra Lightfoot, The Born Ruffians, and Owen Pallett.

  

Also the creative and thought provoking installations here and there throughout the venue.

 

Part of the street entertainment was “unofficial” busking. One unfortunate result of buskers setting up too close to each other was that their sound competed and it was hard to enjoy either one.  I liked this unscheduled and impromptu part of the festival but some better location planning or even a friendly agreement to take turns playing sets would have solved that minor irritation.

To Supercrawl organizers, volunteers, artists and performers – congratulations for reclaiming some street space (even temporarily) for art and music.