Around the world
Rodeo Drive will be performing twice during the festival, on August 10 for country night, and a second time two days later at the Shack d’amérique.
“It’s very impressive. There is great variety at the festival. They bring new things every year. It’s always very popular. The dance floor is always full!” added Demers. “But there is also a sense of pride in representing our North American culture at this place where there is so much diversity.”
Bajjaje emphasized that the goal of the festival is to celebrate various cultures and promote a sense of unity.
“We’ve created a village of the world,” she said. “There we can promote our culture, and cultures coming from elsewhere. We can share the richness it brings, with the integration of these worlds and the diversity that comes from that.”
“It’s a space where we can meet others, which is important because prejudice comes from ignorance,” said Bajjaje, referring to the displays of intolerance seen around Sherbrooke, particularly the anti-immigration stickers that had been recently posted around the downtown area. “It’s an inclusive space. Immigrants bring more cultural richness to us. We can’t judge certain groups based on extreme, isolated cases. The festival promotes openness. We get to know other cultures through music, dance, spectacle. We get to exchange. That’s what creates the success of the event, it’s an opportunity for these various communities to get to know one another.”
And what better way to get to know someone than over a glass of beer? To celebrate the festival, as a gift for reaching its 20th edition, the microbrewery Simple Malt from Sainte-eustache created a beer especially for the FTMS, said Bajjaje. It’s a blonde beer, and will be sold for a limited time at Metro supermarkets around Sherbrooke, as well as at the festival itself.
For the occasion of the Festival des Traditions du Monde, the STS (Société des Transports de Sherbrooke) will be offering a free shuttle bus to the site, as well as having a special $1 fee for all of its routes during the festivities.
The FTMS is selling ‘passports’ on pre-sale until July 31 for all five days of the festival for $10. Past that date, day passes will cost $7 for adults, and will be free for children 14-years-old and under.