This September, Toronto will welcome a new festival that puts water centre stage. From September 20 to 28, the inaugural Water/Fall Festival will spill across the city with large-scale art installations, live performances, and thought-provoking talks exploring the beauty and urgency of our relationship with water.
Anchored at Harbourfront Centre and Ontario Place, the programming will ripple into public squares, waterfront parks and even unexpected downtown nooks. One highlight is the Urban Waterfall Project, a towering installation designed to surprise visitors with a dramatic rush of sound and spray in the heart of the city. Another is Reflections, an outdoor projection series that transforms building façades into moving canvases of glimmering water imagery after dark. Families can join hands-on workshops at Harbourfront, while Ontario Place will host multimedia experiences and concerts with water-inspired soundscapes.
The festival isn’t just about spectacle. Curators have invited scientists, Indigenous water protectors, artists and urbanists to share ideas through panels and dialogues, including sessions on clean-water equity and the future of sustainable cities. For the playful at heart, there are interactive elements such as misting walkways and a “river soundscape” where visitors can stroll through shifting audio streams.
“Water is life, water is story, and water is play,” says artistic director Ravi Jain. “The Water/Fall Festival is a way of reminding Torontonians that water shapes our city and our future.” The nine-day celebration will culminate in a closing night performance at Ontario Place featuring a full symphonic score set to projected visuals of waterfalls from around the world.
Free to attend and spread across multiple venues, Water/Fall promises to be both a spectacle and a conversation starter — a reminder that the most ordinary element of our lives can make for some pretty extraordinary moments.
