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West Fest 2.0

At this point, some of you are probably wondering, "West Fest? What’s that?" Well, let me tell you. Not only does it have a brilliant rhyming name (even better than the time period in my school that teachers fondly refer to as Test Fest), it is a PARTY IN THE FTC!

West Fest is a celebration of everything that was achieved in the past year by the socially aware youth leaders in the lower mainland. There are excellent speakers such as FTC’s Marc Kielburger, a real live host from MTV and amazing performances by local and international artists.

I attended the very first West Fest last year, and my oh my was it a good time. It really felt like a very large group of friends (if people actually went around in groups of a few hundreds, that is) with the same goal of changing the world for the better had all come together to celebrate what had been done and encourage each other for what still had to be accomplished. It was so inspiring to hear stories of what other youths had been doing and how passionate they were to make positive change. In a word, West Fest = faith in humanity again. Ha.

It was also an amazing time in the entertainment value as well. Jessi Cruickshank, the host last year, did a great job pumping up the crowd, which soon developed a near feeding frenzy at the sight of Mariana’s Trench (and other performers like Carly Rae Jepsen). Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger were obviously brilliant and inspiring. (It also made my year when Craig jumped down into the audience and broke off a part of the stage)

So now here is West Fest 2.0. Bigger, better and with an even cooler name (I’m assuming that they are going to make West Fest an annual event, but hopefully they’ll drop the numbers because West Fest 26.0 doesn’t really do it for me…). Will you be there?

Come join the party. Although it’s put on by Free the Children, you don’t have to know much about the organization nor do you have to be actively involved with FTC. It is an entirely youth - and change-based event, with no hidden agendas. Although there will be a lot of FTC-related material at West Fest, the real focus of the evening is to inspire youth to be the change – in any shape or form.
If you volunteer your time, if you’ve donated to Haiti, if you’re just really interested in various social issues, you are exactly what makes the heart of West Fest beat.

Tickets are $30. Please refer to http://freethechildren.com/westfest/ for more information. You can also find out if your school has been given any tickets, or if some students are planning to go together as a group. See you May 19th at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver!

Were you at West Fest last year? What was YOUR most memorable event of the evening?
Also – this is tentative as of yet, but I might be interviewed onstage about HOPE committee’s recent achievement of building a school in Kenya. So you might see me. Come say hi?