Popular Mississauga festival will take place on prime summer dates, expand to other cities

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Published March 22, 2023 at 2:58 pm

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Mississauga’s award-winning festival celebrating the best in arts, culture and entertainment from the Muslim community is moving up in the summer festival schedule to a prime spot in early July.

MuslimFest 2023, the largest event of its kind in North America and getting bigger as it continues to expand to cities beyond Mississauga, will take place July 7 to 9 at Celebration Square in the city’s downtown core as it celebrates its 20th year.

In past years, the festival has taken place end of August/early September.

Named one of Ontario’s Top 100 festivals for the past dozen years, MuslimFest from year to year features both local and international artists showcasing their talents on stage over three days.

Admission to the all-ages event is free.

After last year’s festival, organizers said the huge event had come back “bigger and better than ever” after missing two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The last two years, we did not allow the pandemic to slow us down. We got creative and expanded to five different cities (in addition to Mississauga), bringing adapted versions of our event to ensure that the Muslim community could find celebration and enjoyment in the arts,” MuslimFest event director Tariq Syed said at the time.

In addition to Mississauga, MuslimFest was celebrated in Brantford, Markham, London, Ottawa and Edmonton.

MuslimFest also received $50,000 in tourism relief funding recently from the federal government to bolster its expansion efforts to other cities in the post-pandemic world.

The first MuslimFest in Mississauga was held in 2004. It has won a number of awards over the years, both on the local and national fronts, including Best Social Media Campaign and Best Greening of Festival recognition.

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