Town of Stouffville Wins Two Achievement Awards from Festival and Events Ontario
The Town of Stouffville’s ‘Stouffville Celebrates’ feature event, the Stouffville Holiday Market has won two Festivals and Events Ontario (FEO) Awards.
The Leisure & Community Services Events Team has been recognized with two awards from Festivals and Events Ontario: 2023 Top 100 Festival Award and FEO Achievement Innovation Award for the Stouffville Holiday Market. Festival and Events Ontario (FEO) represents over 2500 festivals and events in Ontario through their association membership. Its Achievement Awards recognize excellence in festivals and events across the province.
The Stouffville Holiday Market took place from November 23-25, 2022 and included a partnership with Latcham Art Centre Beyond Craft Show, held at “19 on the Park”, the town’s downtown theater. This year the combined attendance for Holiday Market + Beyond Craft was approximately 18,000 people.
“After only two editions, The Stouffville Holiday Market has already become a hallmark event in our community. This event has become an attraction for not just our residents but for visitors from all around the Region and beyond," said Mayor Iain Lovatt. "We are incredibly proud of our award-winning Events team for bringing the magic of the holidays to the streets of Stouffville like never before."
The event that took place on our historical Main St. and in Memorial Park included a Tree Lighting ceremony immediately followed by a holiday sing-along on Main Street. It had indoor and outdoor artisanal marketplace, activations, roaming characters, holiday train, horse and carriage rides, visits with Santa, great food and beverages all weekend long.
The events’ entertainment was a stocked line up of artists consisting of headline performances from, Don Amero, Good Lovelies, Preston Pablo and Shawn Hook.
The 2022 Stouffville Holiday Market was made possible from our generous sponsors, StateView Homes as our Presenting Sponsor and telMAX as our Diamond Sponsor and Holiday Tree sponsor. Stouffville also received a $900,000 non-repayable contribution from the Government of Canada’s Tourism Relief Fund, through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario). Approximately $27,000 of the funding was allocated to the Holiday Market.
“Thank you to Festivals and Events Ontario for recognizing Stouffville’s commitment to bringing engaging events to our residents and visitors,” says Director of Leisure and Community Services, Sunny Bains. “The contributions from our sponsors and partners allow us to continue to elevate our events and programming and we look forward to delivering an award-winning program of events in 2023 for Stouffville!”
The Achievement Awards were presented at the annual Awards Gala Dinner held on the evening of Wednesday, March 8, as a part of the 2023 Annual FEO Conference.