Our version of Big Feastival makes debut in August

TORONTO — A food and music festival conceived by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in the United Kingdom is coming to Canada this August.

The Big Feastival Canada will showcase music on one stage, Canadian chefs cooking live on another, and family entertainment elsewhere.

The inaugural event is slated to take place at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, northeast of Barrie, Ont., from Aug. 18 to 20.

In the U.K., the Big Feastival is hosted annually at the Cotswolds family farm of Blur bassist Alex James, who has turned his hand to making awardwinning artisanal cheeses.

The Canadian event will also focus on gourmet street food, pop-up restaurants and cook-offs.

“If you want a festival to work you’ve got to be doing something special, and what Big Feastival is brilliant at is food and kids’ stuff. We’ve got 10 kids between us, Jamie and I,” James said in an interview in Toronto on Wednesday ahead of an event to launch the Big Feastival Canada.

As the food ambassador, Canadian TV personality and restaurateur Chuck Hughes, who has two sons aged three and six months, says about 15 chefs have signed on so far to take part.

“A lot of the chefs that are coming are mostly all my friends and people that everyone knows,” Hughes said. “It’s all guys who are kind of in the same spot as I am right now. They have young children, they love food, they love the outdoors. This combines it all together.”

Oliver launched the concept of the festival in 2011 in London.