The award winning Toronto Waterfront Festival, which last year brought back the World’s Largest Rubber Duck,announced their 2024 event today.

The festival will be held at Sugar Beach from September 14-15, 2024 and will feature the Canine Watersports Canada competition (CWC). CWC is a premiere dog dock jumping competition with a variety of cute pups diving, jumping and fetching into a 45ft pool on land. The festival previously included dog jumping competitions in 2014 and 2015 and it was a fan-favourite.

Multicoloured dog landing with a splash into a pool with Watersports banner in the background.

The Toronto Waterfront Festival, which is a not-for-profit, will remain a free event, but for the first time in the festival’s 14 year history, festival producers are asking attendees to voluntarily pay what they can.

“Our mandate has always been to bring free, family-friendly, water-themed entertainment to Toronto’s Waterfront, and we will continue to do that for as long as we can,” says Michael Riehl, Chair of the Toronto Waterfront Festival. “However, with the rising operations costs and dramatic reduction in government funding from all levels this year, it is a very tough time for most festivals and events in Ontario. As a result, we are asking our visitors to pay what they can to help in any small way to continue to keep the festival alive.” 

Additional programming for the festival includes:

    • Meet the crew of the Canadian Armed Forces and learn what life is like as a military member.
    • Walk the plank with Pirate Life interactive theatre and see a real-life pirate ship.
    • Experience pop-up entertainment presented by Redpath Sugar.
    • See Toronto’s own tall ship, Empire Sandy, docked at the water’s edge.
    • Enjoy delicious eats from local food vendors in the Billy Bishop Airport Picnic Lounge.
    • Interactive cultural activities from Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation & Moccasin Identifier.
    • Free fitness classes from Unity Fitness and Menkes Developments.
    • Snap a selfie with Lucky the 10ft Rubber Duck and grab tons of free giveaways from partners.
    • Fun crafts and games for kids from Live Green Toronto.

Wooden pirate ship with wheels on grass at a past toronto waterfront festival event. Pirate is seen standing on the deck of the ship.

2024 festival partners include: The Waterfront BIA, Redpath Sugar, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Menkes Developments, Porter Airlines and Westin Harbour Castle.

For more information on the festival visit www.towaterfrontfest.com and @towaterfrontfest on social media.