CANMORE – A new local festival showcasing health and wellness in the Valley is returning for a second year this fall with some changes.
Thrive Festival is returning to Canmore from Nov. 8-10, 2019 and has already announced events for its lineup to get the community signed up early to learn more about the benefits of a variety of local health and wellness initiatives.
“We are all in pursuit of better health and I think it’s such an important aspect of our day-to-day life and I think a lot of people take for granted if you are in fairly good health, but the minute your health starts to go in a different direction, it becomes the most important thing,” said festival organizer Cheryl Cooper.
“I think that is something we can all benefit from and we all have something to learn and we can all support each other in the community as well.”
Inspired by a 2015 Economic Diversification Study done for Canmore, Cooper explained health and wellness was identified as a potential area for growth in the community, which led to the inaugural festival last year.
“The [report] ended up in my lap and after a lot of people talking about it and tossing it around, my team and I did something tangible and put it together last year,” she said.
Hosted by local businesses and practitioners, the multi-day festival is a way to showcase health and wellness initiatives in the Valley, while also promoting better overall health.
“The first year was great and I believe by all accounts a success,” Cooper said. “The metrics are sometimes hard to assess, but we did surveys with the ambassadors and participants and the feedback was good and also very constructive and helpful.”
Taking last year’s feedback into consideration, Thrive Festival organizers found ways to streamline the event to make it a better success for those attending activities in November.
“We changed it from four days to three and are also streamlining in terms of location – one of the goals of the festival was to try to showcase Canmore on the map in terms of health and wellness and we’re going to be doing that this year but one of the things people found challenging last year was we had people going to several locations, from one end of town to the other and people found it logistically complicated,” Cooper explained.
Now with the activities in a more centralized location, organizers said they are excited to continue planning the three-day festival.
So far there is a keynote speaker lined up for the Friday kick-off and organizers are hopeful to bring Stoney Nakoda neighbours to also speak or perform. Day two will be full of activities including cooking workshops, yoga classes, fitness classes, outdoor hiking, biking and walking excursions followed by an evening music, with performers to be announced. And day three will wrap up with an experiential expo, “different from a regular expo” organizers are asking participants to create an experience that reflect what their business is for attendees, along with a Made in Canmore health and wellness market.
“We are also hoping to do an incredible health quest which is like an Amazing Race style race, we did last year,” Cooper said.
To keep updated on any exciting announcements or for more information on the Thrive Festival, go to thrivefestivalcanmore.com
