August 17 2018
For anyone living in Toronto there is only one clue that schools are ready to open and that is the unofficial end of summer fair which has endured for 140 years. Opening day at the Ex!
The Canadian National Exhibition (aka, the CNE, the Ex, the grand lady by the lake or just the X) kicked off 2018 and ominous thunderstorms hit the fair a few times throughout the day. Overall it was a mostly dry day but people simply ran inside buildings when the heavy rain came down and it rarely lasted more than 30 minutes. The evening stayed dry for a major highlight for us musically for Dennis DeYoung (the vocalist, keyboardist and main songwriter) of Styx rocked the packed Bandshell. Since we are T-Mak World and rock is the key part of the website we review that show separately here.
As always there are new events at the fair that the CNE really markets and this year their headline attraction is the Legend of the Silk Road – an indoor lantern festival with 17 sculptures from China. We checked it out and it was truly impressive with plenty of photo opportunities for the Instagram crowd. Considering Toronto’s Asian population (and diversity), this should be a popular attraction. There is also an Asian market on Princes’ Boulevard the last weekend of the Ex where it sounds like a night market might be reproduced during the day.
One big event that we are stoked for is on the weekend of August 24-26 is the AMD Gaming Garage (my full time employer). This will be a celebration of gaming unlike any Toronto has ever seen before with 150 high end gaming PC’s, XBox consoles, VR stations and tens of thousands of dollars of prize giveaways).
We leave you with some images from the day and with a very strong recommendation to hit The Ex at least once this year. For the core T-Mak World audience remember that there are great classic rock concerts at the Bandshell including (Kansas, Classic Albums Live doing Zeppelin II, and Nancy Wilson of Heart).
