Residents and out-of-town visitors alike will be flocking to Two Rivers Stadium for the annual Paris Drinks Fest on Friday, August 15 and Saturday, August 16, 2025.
The 19-plus event was first held in 2018 as a one-day event, and has since grown into a two-day festival designed to celebrate food and drinks from across southern Ontario.
“It’s really a celebration of a lot of the great businesses that we have in the region. There’s craft beer, local wine, distilleries and some of Canada’s best bands coming to perform over the weekend in Paris so it’s a lot of fun,” said Tim Des Islets, Founder of Paris Drinks Fest. “It’s about sampling different drinks, trying new foods and discovering your favourite band.”
In preparation for the event, Des Islets and his team have organized a full line up of talent for the weekend-long affair.
The Friday evening session runs from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and will feature the Trash Pans Brass, Absolute Losers, Born in the Eighties, and headliner, the Sam Roberts Band. The event continues on Saturday from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. and with performances from Altameda, The Wild High, SHEBAD, Shania Twink, and headliner Matt Mays.
“As always, the programming is going to be diverse and offer a bit of everything to people,” said the organizer. “The fun thing about working in music is getting to these amazing bands, and then getting to come to an event and create a soundtrack for the summer; it’s just the best.”
This year’s event will not only be showcasing several businesses from all over southern Ontario, but local businesses like Sassy Britches Brewery, Paris Beer Co., the Arlington Hotel, Willibald Farm Distillery & Brewery, Howell Road Cider Co., and the Waffle Pop Shop.
“We have about 35 food trucks, restaurants, breweries, and wineries, as well as a couple non-alchoholic options too,” said Des Islets. “It’s great because there’s all kinds of food this year like the Poutine Supreme truck, the Paris Lions Club, we’ve got Los Rolling Tacos, Patty’s Chicken Tenders, the Arlington Hotel, and the Indian Herbs Kitchen.”
Des Islets said that attendees will be able to purchase their various food and refreshment items through the use of tokens.
“The tokens are two-dollars each and people can buy them at the venue, but they’re also available to buy on the website with the tickets, and we sell them in bags of ten,” he said. “As for the tickets to the actual event, we’ve got single tickets for either the Friday or the Saturday, which are $50 each, and that’s all in with taxes and fees. Then there’s weekend passes which are about $97, and again, that’s all in with taxes and fees. Those prices not only cover getting into the festival, but that also gets people one of our stainless steel sampling cups and two sampling tokens.”
Des Islets added that there are also VIP options near the stage, and ticket purchases include catered meals from Devlin’s Country Bistro, as well as access to the ShackBar.
The organizer said that while planning a big event takes a lot of work, getting to see the community come together makes it all worth it.
“It’s a very community-focused event, and we try to make it feel like, when you arrive, everybody knows everybody, and that everybody’s part of it to experience all these new things together. We’ve heard from a lot of people already who are asking where the best place is to stay, or, ‘where should we go for lunch, or what should we do before the festival?’” said Des Islets. “It always kind of turns into the same story of, ‘we’ve got these friends that we met previously and we only see them on this one weekend every year, so we’re trying to plan a whole weekend together.’ …It’s great because this is sort of their big summer get-together, and so it’s just fun to hear that, and it’s fun to watch the people from out of town make friends with the locals and just find their new tribe for the summer.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
