acer rose

OK, except Toronto and Montreal, which Canadian city do you think has the widest choice year-round of theatre (any type), live music (of any kind), festivals (from log-rolling to modern dance if you like) and art-house movies (anything without copious roman numerals and/or Police Academy in the title)?

hot wasabi peas

My first thought was 'probably Vancouver' since it's a big city, etc… and yeah there is a lot to do but I personally don't think it offers the entertainment and cultural pursuits that it could. So my pick would be Victoria but then I'm biased from having live there for eons. But I think it was just declared the 'Culture Capitial of Canada' or something stoopid like that. So I have some gov't propaganda machine on my side too.

Anyways, for a small city, there is a lot of entertainment. There are also a lot activities to enjoy that don't rely on being entertained by others or some thing but are fun through active participation (sports, clubs, hobbies, courses, etc) but I'll stick with the 'entertain me' enjoyments:

I'm just offering a list out of my browser bookmarks (I pay more attention as to what's going on in Victoria being away from it – I try to plan visits back when certain things are happening in town).

Theatre:
The Belfry (local theatre companies)
http://www.belfry.bc.ca/

Langham Court Theatre (local theatre companies)
http://www.langhamcourttheatre.bc.ca/

Royal Theatre (mainy live threatre – local and touring companies)
Mc Pherson Playhouse (mainly music: rock concerts to operas)
http://www.rmts.bc.ca/

Victoria Conservatory of Music
http://www.vcm.bc.ca/

Oh and there's the Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park
free outdoor venue mainly outdoor concertos and family/old folks entertainment though I saw Etta James perform there – one of the highlights of my life. Effing amazing.

Luminara (paper lantern festival – simply beautiful)
http://www.luminaravictoria.com/

Moss Street Paint-In (local artists 'set-up shop' along the length of Moss St and people come to say hi – open studio type thing) put on by the Art Gallery of Victoria: http://www.aggv.bc.ca/

Apparently, there are more artists in Victoria per capita than anywhere else in Canada, according to various sources – biased sources probably – how do you measure artists?

Victoria has two cinemas that show only (or mostly) cult-classic, indpendent, arty, etc films – Cinecenta and the Roxy Cinegog. Plus the Vic Theatre usually shows classics and good movies. This is something I miss a lot.

Cinecenta (at UVIC and has great popcorn with real butter, not that Odeon crap!)
http://www.cinecenta.com/

The Roxy Cine-gog (a freaks paradise though the 'currently showing' flicks are much out of character – I'm wondering if it's been sold – anyone know? Willmore?)
http://www.tourvic.com/roxy/

And there's an IMAX.

The Free-B Film Festival
http://www.vifvf.com/freeb/index.html
(free B movies shown in the Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park Sat. nights)
plus just the local film fest - http://www.vifvf.com/

Some festivals:

Latin Caribbean Festival
http://www.vircs.bc.ca/latinfest.html

Symphony Splash
http://www.victoriasymphony.ca

There are Blues and Jazz festivals:
http://www.vicjazz.bc.ca/

And a Roots and World Music festival up island:
http://www.islandmusicfest.com/
(I can almost smell the weed from here )

Victoria Fringe Festival
http://www.intrepidtheatre.com/

Dragon Boat Festival
http://www.victoriadragonboat.com/

Tall Ships Festival
http://www.tallshipsvictoria.ca/

Oh and there's Folk Fest (an increasingly sanitized and commercialized festival celebrating multiculuralism but still good fun, great entertainment and good eats) http://www.icafolkfest.com

Though I do move about to music in my own special way, I'm not really into watching dance. Most of it bores me senseless to be honest (I suspect it's because I just don't understand it – no offence to those who get it.) though I have been involved in fancydancing: http://www.inthespiritofdance.com/

Relating to the above, there are a lot of local First Nations activities and festivals as well: Salmon Festivals (drool), Powwows, Potlatches, sweatlodges, cultural centres, theatre, art showings, dance, totem pole raisings, etc… if anyone would like further info just fire me a pm but a useful place to start scratching the surface in Victoria is the Royal Museum http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/ and Quw'utsun Cultural Centre http://www.quwutsun.ca/ up near Duncan.

Another advantage of Victoria in terms of entertainment is access to 'big city' entertainment without having to actually live there . Vancouver and Seattle are each a ferry trip away and useful for big city stuff like big-venue rock concerts (ie if Elvis was touring North America he'd play Vancouver and/or Seattle but not Victoria), major league sports (NHL, NBA, MLB), the Bumbershoot Festival, Symphony of Fire, probably livelier nightclubs (not my thing – I'm just guessing), bigger galleries, etc

There's a lot more stuff that is out of my experience or interest (children's entertainment, fashion events, monster truck rallies, ballets, sailing events, etc), so I don't have the links or any info about them.

Oh you did mention log rolling. Yes, that's covered too just a 40 minute drive out to Sooke: http://www.allsookeday.com/ I went once and that's probably enough for a while but it was entertaining and the skills on display were impressive. I would recommend it to anyone.

Well, there you have a quick description of some of the entertainment available in Victoria. Acer rose, I think you'll find the following chart adds clarity to the above:

acer rose

So, there are only Victoria, (possibly Vancouver if I read HWP's post correctly), Toronto and Montreal (my contributions) that have a good selection of stuff other than shopping, sport and the great outdoors going on!

I knew I should have done this as a poll. I'm still surprised that Texada Island had its own opera house and was hoping to find a few more unexpected gems - and couldn't face the arguments ensuing from missing Flin Flon or Carcross of the poll list

Judy in Calgary

Sorry, I don't know about theatre, live music, and art-house movies in any Canadian city other than Calgary, where I live. I know of only the most famous festivals, e.g., Quebec Winter Carnival, around the rest of the country. I would love to help you out, but I just can't.

This is the only place in Canada in which I've lived. The furthest east I've travelled in Canada is Ottawa. Although I'm a great fan of art-house movie theatres in Calgary, I've never been to an art-house movie theatre in another Canadian city. Going to "alternative" movies is something I do when I'm at home, not when I'm on vacation. When I vacation in other cities, I visit their landmarks, museums, surrounding scenery, etc.

There are other reasons why it's difficult to answer your question. In Calgary's case, for example, do you want me to count festivals that take place in Calgary proper, or are you willing to include festivals that take place within a couple of hours' drive? If you're willing to encompass festivals in surrounding towns I could, for instance, include Canmore's folk music festival, Strathmore's rodeo, Drumheller's passion play, and so on.

Calgary has three art-house movie theatres : the Globe, the Uptown and the Plaza.

These are Calgary's theatres:
Here are some choirs, orchestras and music clubs in Calgary itself:
Calgary's best known festival is the ten-day Stampede in July. Other festivals in Calgary proper include:
Somewhere along the line I've also heard what HWP said, namely, that Victoria is the richest of Canada's cities when it comes to culture.

I would think that Ottawa must be right up there too. Ottawa certainly has an excellent collection of museums and art galleries.

I'll be surprised if any single person here has enough knowledge of all six of Canada's time zones to be of real use to you. Perhaps you can ask people to list the cultural facilities in the cities they know, and you can tabulate the results.

Edited to fix typo.

acer rose

Thanks for sharing what you do know, as ever it was informative and interesting (to me anyway). Perhaps I should have rephrased the question. I was interested in what people had to say about the cities they know (whether it is just one or half a dozen) to get an insider's impression of what is really there, and events an outsider might not think immediately associate with that place.

I hesitated to use the word culture when I am not really a "culture vulture" but have to admit to experiencing one of my most pleasurable yet unexpected memories at a little cinema on Catalina Island whilst on holiday. I attended a showing of 'The Thief of Baghdad', complete with full organ accompaniment. In spite of this being an annual event, the place was practically deserted because it was not actually advertised. I was only being nosey because I noticed the door was open!

Sheila and Andy

Probably Prince George.