Venus Fest Inc
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Mission Statement
Venus Fest is a Toronto-based music festival and monthly series. We celebrate women and non-binary artists, create a platform for their underrepresented voices in the music industry, and create jobs for them through our organizing team. Our mandate is to uplift and support those who are marginalized through gender, race, sexuality, physical ability, or otherwise, and we strive to create safer, more connected and accessible spaces for all music lovers. Venus Fest was founded in 2017 in response to a long-standing and clearly expressed need for more equitable opportunities in the arts. Since then, we have hosted an annual festival each September, showcasing three nights of music, art installations, community engagement, restorative activities, tarot readings, and more, with over 2,000 attendees at each festival. We host a monthly series during the year to continue creating a visible platform for marginalized artists. In addition to music and art, Venus Fest offers a conference geared towards the development of women and non-binary artists, with a series of free workshops and panels addressing existing barriers and bridging gaps in career advancement. The response to Venus Fest, from media, community, artists, and international partners, has been overwhelming and affirming. With features in Billboard, Fader, The Walrus, and many more, and most of our shows selling out, music lovers across Canada have spoken loud and clear in their desire for change. We are proud to be at the forefront of this change, responding proactively to historical challenges while also celebrating artistic excellence.
About This Cause
Venus Fest was founded in early 2017 by Artistic Director Aerin Fogel. Since then, Venus Fest has hosted an annual festival each September, and 1-2 shows per month throughout the year. Festivals and shows are all Toronto-based, with a broad range of local and international artists, showcasing roughly 75% Canadian artists with roughly 25% international acts. The festival is dedicated to creating progressive change in the music industry on many levels. Women and non-binary people are the focus on stage, as well as throughout the organizing team. Venus Fest strives to create equitable, welcoming, and connected spaces within music, combating the traditionally unsafe and narrowly representative spaces that have dominated the music industry for a very long time. Venus Fest is also dedicated to uplifting the voices of women and non-binary people of colour, creating priority for black and indigenous artists, arts workers, and board members. With a strong focus on accessibility, the festival continues to program in spaces that are physically accessible to all music lovers, and to create other levels of emotional and psychological accessibility through their safer space policy development, restorative areas, mindfulness activities, community engagement spaces, tarot readings, and more. To date, Venus Fest has supported over 100 artists, across 3 festivals and over 25 shows, from local developing acts playing their first show to internationally renowned headliners such as Charlotte Cardin, The Vaselines, Zola Jesus, Grouper, Bully, Tei Shi, The Weather Station, Frankie Cosmos, and many more, including a presentation of two sold out nights at Danforth Music Hall for Bikini Kill’s reunion tour this coming May. In 2019 the festival launched an additional conference component, with a series of free workshops and panels geared towards developing women and non-binary artists. The intention of the conference is to support the overall mission of Venus Fest; to bridge the gaps and barriers that many artists face due to their identity, race, ability, or otherwise, and demystify aspects of the music industry such as self-releasing an album, touring, marketing, creating demos and recording, self-care and mental wellness, and more. Since the launch of Venus Fest, many small but incremental steps have taken place the world over to create change within music. Audiences and community members are holding festivals to a higher standard, asking to see themselves represented in the lineups and throughout shows during the year. The KeyChange Project launched in the UK, inviting festivals all over the world to commit to reaching gender parity over the next 5 years. The #metoo movement sparked healing and groundbreaking conversations in almost every industry, music notwithstanding. Venus Fest continues to strive to be an empowering voice in these conversations, uplifting artists who are greatly talented in their field but who have faced additional barriers to opportunity. Now in its fourth year, Venus Fest remains the only larger-scale Canadian festival and presenter dedicated to women, non-binary artists, and other marginalized groups. We are hopeful for the future, and continue to grow in scope and strength with each show. We invite you to be part of the future of music.