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This Week in Canada: Creative Fundraising Ideas, Halloween Celebrations, a Zero-Waste Festival, and More

BizBash's new Canada-focused column covers the week's biggest event news.

Liberty Entertainment Group is hosting a Halloween-themed, self-guided walking tour at the historic Casa Loma castle in Toronto. From now through Nov. 1, elaborate Halloween sets have been placed throughout the castle's five acres, taking over the gardens and underground passageways. See more: Ready for Halloween? Here's How Event Organizers Are Hosting Safe, Creative Experiences This Year
Liberty Entertainment Group is hosting a Halloween-themed, self-guided walking tour at the historic Casa Loma castle in Toronto. From now through Nov. 1, elaborate Halloween sets have been placed throughout the castle's five acres, taking over the gardens and underground passageways. See more: Ready for Halloween? Here's How Event Organizers Are Hosting Safe, Creative Experiences This Year
Photo: Courtesy of Casa Loma

Welcome to BizBash's newest column, covering Canada’s biggest event news from coast to coast. Got a tip? Get in touch!

Provincial News
Alberta: Edmonton’s Grindhouse Theatre and local nu-disco night Sweat are hosting “Mask Up!,” a socially distanced Halloween block party from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Limited to 100 people at a time, the event features an outdoor bar, all-evening DJs, eight fire pits available for booking, a photo booth, costume contests, and candy giveaways, plus Grindhouse’s full food and drink menu. Each day, family-friendly events will start at 3 p.m. before the adults-only party runs from 7 to 11 p.m. A VIP after-party inside the theater will run until 2 a.m. on Halloween night.

British Columbia: Boutique Belles Amie, a lingerie shop in Port Alberni, held an out-of-the-box “Bras for A Cause” event to raise money for breast cancer awareness month. Participants were invited to creatively decorate their old bras, which were displayed in the store window during the month of October. Pedestrians walking by were encouraged to make a donation and vote for their favorite bra, with the winning designer receiving a store gift. Organizers, who’ve worked with cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomies and other treatments, are hoping to turn the fundraiser into an annual event. 

New Brunswick: The Gutsy Walk, a national initiative for Crohn’s & Colitis Canada, is hosting a Halloween fundraiser for its next Haut-Madawaska-based event on Oct. 31. All-night music by DJ Maxime Tammy Boucher, best-costume prize packages, and an appetizer table will be featured at Club d’age d’Or, which can accommodate as many as 50 people.  

Ontario: Although its annual ball is canceled, the Ontario Science Centre's RBC Innovators' eAuction runs from Oct. 26 to Nov. 9 in support of upcoming virtual programming and online events dedicated to inspiring passion for science and technology among youth. This year’s event focuses on “whoa moments,” in which visitors, programmers, and guest speakers recall the first time they found themselves in awe with an experience at the center. Prizes include a video meet and greet with storm chaser and Angry Planet host George Kourounis, a private dinner with Toronto-based tech sector leaders, and artwork by 20 artists (who will receive a portion of the winning bid). 

Quebec: Montreal’s fourth annual Zero Waste Festival/Le Festival Zéro Déchet will take place online from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. The weekend includes a virtual exhibitor fair with over 30 companies providing green solutions, 25-person workshops with sustainability-driven technology and ecology specialists, and live panels with leading experts in zero-waste management. Founded in 2017, the organization works to educate Quebec businesses and citizens on how to adapt eco-friendly consumption habits by going beyond traditional recycling to minimize their waste as much as possible. 

Coast-to-Coast
Planet Fabulon, the winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals grant, is running a two-weekend fully virtual edition of its “Level Up” event from Oct. 23-24 and Oct. 30-31. Combining online gaming, concerts, artwork, dance parties, and theater into one retro video game-style experience, the event invites Zoom participants to go from level to level solving challenges and defeating evil bosses to win prizes. Each night, audiences will take part in a choose-your-own-adventure-style quest filled with live performances by local artists. “The energy of the silly, larger-than-life characters in Level Up is so infectious that anyone—from kids to adults, music enthusiasts to gamers—can tune in for a respite from these challenging times and indulge in what we all love so much about Halloween: an escape into a costumed world of adventure,” said Level Up actor Anna Douglas. 

As the second wave of COVID-19 intensifies in parts of the country, Canadian hospitality workers staged demonstrations calling for increased government aid in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver last week, according to CBC. Although emergency federal wage subsidies initially paid up to 75% of worker salaries, currently they only cover two-thirds of wages, as hotels see bookings drop off as the pandemic worsens. In late October, both Ontario and British Columbia recorded new daily case count highs, with 274 in British Columbia and over 1,000 in Ontario. 

Overheard
“If anyone has been to the pioneer village for a Halloween event in the past, you’ll know that normally we err on the side of eerie or maybe unsettling, with a lot of history or history-tinged aspect. That is not what’s happening this year. This year we are going scary. People have been asking for years for us to turn the village into a haunted house. And we thought, no better year than this year, when we can’t do what we normally do.”

—Alison Deplonty, public programming coordinator of London’s Fanshawe Pioneer Village, speaking to Global News about this year’s haunted house experience.

On the Scene
From Oct. 16-25, the Jasper Dark Sky Festival hosted astronomy-themed events from the Canadian Rocky Mountains. 

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