Around 3,000 people are expected to attend this year’s Paris Drinks Fest at Two Rivers Stadium on Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17, 2024.
The event was first held in 2018 as a one-day event, and has since grown into a two-day festival designed to be a celebration of food and drinks from across Southern Ontario.
“You know, we really want people to come out and try different samples from all the different breweries, wineries, distilleries, and restaurants and find their new favourite thing. We have so many great breweries popping up in the Paris area alone, and there’s so many good ones that a lot people probably don’t even know about yet,” said Tim Des Islets, Founder of Paris Drinks Fest. “It’s a really great chance to talk to these brewers who are on site to tell people about what they do and answer questions about their products. It’s really sort of a grassroots approach to a brewery or a wine tour, but you get everybody in one spot so you can really experience a little bit of everything. As always we also have a really great music line up and it’s just a relaxed and casual event where you get to try different foods and drinks, watch some music, see some friends and just enjoy being outside.”
As far as music goes, Des Islets and his team have organized a full line up for the big event.
The Friday evening session runs from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and will feature Julianna Riolino, Two Hours Traffic, and Wintersleep, while Saturday’s session runs from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. will celebrate the return of crowd favourite, Dwayne Gretzky, as well as Boy Golden and Talia Schlanger.
As always, throughout the two-day event, over 30 different vendors will be on site for guests to enjoy including local businesses such as Paris Beer Co., Howell Road Cider Co., Blue Gables Acres, Manns Distillery, Cheescake On the Go and the Arlington Hotel.
Des Islets said that attendees will be able to purchase their various refreshments through the use of tokens.
“So tokens are $2 each and they usually cover one sample size pouring from drink vendors,” he said. “For example, one token will get you a 5oz sample of beer or cider, 2oz of wine or .5oz of liquor. For the food vendors, everything will be priced accordingly, so for something like a snack, might be two tokens or a burger may be four or five, it all really depends on what you’re getting. Of course, if anyone still has any tokens left over from last year, you can use those as well, or you can pre-order your tokens online or even buy them when you get there.”
Upon arrival, guests will receive this year’s Paris Drinks Fest cups that they can take home afterwards. Des Islets said this ensures the festival creates less waste.
“This year, we found these really cool new glasses that are recyclable and dishwasher safe, keep drinks really cold and they look cool too. We’ll be announcing the design soon, so people will be able to get a sneak peak at them in a couple days,” he said. “We always like to give these out so we’re minimizing the single use cups from all the vendors. We also try to get all the vendors to use recyclable materials so we can really try to reduce our waste on site. For those vendors that do have cans or bottles, we’re actually going to keep those empties and give them to a couple local organizations to use for donations. It’s kind of a win-win because not only are we cutting down our waste, but we also get to give back to the community.”
While Saturday is all sold-out, Des Islets said there are still tickets available for Friday.
When it comes to parking, the festival founder said he encourages people to walk, bike, take public transit or carpool, but that there is still plenty of parking around town.
“We’re actually closer to all the parking lots downtown Paris than we are normally when we’re up in Lions Park, so it’s basically still the same parking plan. We’ve got the municipal lots in downtown Paris, there’s also a municipal lot near Syl Aps by the dam,” he said. “There’s also a couple different businesses that might be closed and we could potentially utilize some of their parking and then, of course, the festival isn’t at Lions Park this year, so that opens that whole parking lot right up and people can walk on over. Of course, we don’t encourage anyone to block any residential homes if they’re parking along the streets, but we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on parking and directing people and letting them know where the local options are.”
Overall, Des Islets said that despite having to deal with a venue change up this year, he and his team are looking forward to being able to bring the annual festival back.
“When Lions Park was flooding, we were really nervous but we were so grateful that it happened a month out and not during the event,” he said. “Having the flooding issues at the park would have definitely made it dangerous as far as the stage, vendors, generators and a couple thousand people go, so we’re glad we were able to get everything sorted. I know there’s a bit of concern from some of the residents but I think we’ve addressed them and we’re glad that council and the County have been so supportive in helping us move quickly. It was all definitely a bit of a learning curve there, but we’re so happy we still get to run the event and bring it back to Paris this year.”
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.
