Canal Fest moving to Gratwick Park in North Tonawanda
Canal Fest of the Tonawandas has faced uncertainty about its future over the past half-dozen years since the Covid-19 pandemic forced its cancellation in 2020 and 2021.
Is Canal Fest still Canal Fest if it takes place 3 miles from the canal?
We’ll find out this summer.
Canal Fest of the Tonawandas will end decades of tradition this year when it leaves its longtime home in the heart of the Twin Cities.
“It’s official! We are moving to Gratwick Park in North Tonawanda! More rides, more food and the same great music!” the nonprofit wrote on its website this week.
Gratwick-Riverside Park, along the Niagara River, is several miles north of downtown Tonawanda and North Tonawanda, where Canal Fest has long been held.
Rick Maier, a senior Canal Fest organizer, did not respond Wednesday to messages seeking comment on the reasons for the change. But organizers have struggled recently to find a financial model that still works for Canal Fest, an eight-day event that draws up to 150,000 people to the Twin Cities each summer.
And Tonawanda officials have long raised concerns about the burden Canal Fest places on police and other municipal resources in that city.
Tonawanda leaders said they expected to have further discussions with Canal Fest organizers about the 2026 event, and they were surprised to hear the relocation was happening.
"I thought there would be some more dialogue,” Tonawanda Mayor William Strassburg II said in an interview. “I don't know what went into their decision to make this move."
Jacob Botticelli from Pinelli’s Sweets and Treats hands a customer their fried dough at Canal Fest on Minerva Street on July 15, 2025.
Organizers have announced the 2026 version of the festival will shift from its longtime home in downtown Tonawanda and
North Tonawanda to Gratwick-Riverside Park in North Tonawanda.
Buffalo News file photo
Canal Fest has faced uncertainty over its future in recent years.
The four-decade-old festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It returned in 2022 without its signature parade and almost was canceled again in 2023, before the Hochul administration provided financial aid to keep it running.
The Tonawanda Common Council only reluctantly approved the event in 2024.
In 2025, Tonawanda city officials pushed for changes that included shrinking the event on their side of the canal from eight to six days and shifting all amusement rides and games of chance to the North Tonawanda side.
North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec on Wednesday said it is challenging to host the event in his downtown, but the city has tried to support Canal Fest over the years.
Gratwick Park offers ample space for rides, vendors, and other festival features, Tylec said, though he doesn’t know how difficult it will be for organizers to adjust to the new venue.
"On our end, we can make it work,” he said. “It's a little more flexible at Gatwick for the city.”
The North Tonawanda Common Council agreed at its Tuesday meeting to let Canal Fest use Gratwick Park for this year’s festival, scheduled to run from July 19 to 26.
The city is in the final year of a three-year deal with Canal Fest to provide police, fire and other services in exchange for annual reimbursement that amounted to $37,000 for 2025.
The move to Gratwick Park did make some North Tonawanda residents wonder about the event’s longtime branding, Tylec said.
“We are all questioning whether they're going to keep the name Canal Fest,” he said, “and someone brought up, is it going to be called River Fest?”
Canal Fest is a major fundraiser for local charities and nonprofits, which set up food and beverage stands at the event, though participation has lagged in recent years.
One of its missions, as stated on its website, is to boost the downtowns of the cities of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda.
Strassburg, who campaigned for Tonawanda mayor last year, said he heard conflicting opinions about the value of Canal Fest. Some businesses say they get a boost from festival attendees, while others close for the week.
“It's a pretty polarizing thing, just because it is divided on the pros and the cons of what the event brings,” Strassburg said.
Tonawanda officials say the festival puts a burden on police, who are often called to work overtime and to deal with unruly young people, and that’s one reason the city pushed to move the rides and shorten Canal Fest to six days instead of eight.
“It wasn't a fair shake, that's the way I look at it,” said 1st Ward Council Member Jim Shiesley, a retired city police officer.
Shiesley said Tonawanda officials had wanted to begin planning discussions about 2026's event with Canal Fest organizers in the fall, but never heard from them until a few weeks ago.
Maier and another Canal Fest leader attended the Feb. 3 Tonawanda Common Council meeting, where members questioned the organizers about this summer's festival.
2nd Ward Council Member Christopher Fisher said the move of the rides and games of chance last year to North Tonawanda limited any festival benefit to Tonawanda.
“I said, 'I want to see it brought back. I want to see what we’ve got to do to get the games and the foot traffic, the stuff back on our side, because our nonprofits are saying no one came to visit them,'” Fisher said of the 2025 festival. “There was nobody.”
Fisher and Strassburg said any such move would have required negotiating how much the nonprofit would reimburse the city to cover its expenses, but they never settled on a dollar figure, and the Council never had the chance to vote on a contract with Canal Fest.
Instead, they said they learned after the fact that the Canal Fest board had voted last week to move the festival to Gratwick Park.
“They pulled out on their own accord and didn't even want to have a conversation with us. They just up and left and went to Gatwick,” Fisher said.
This leaves the City of Tonawanda with some unexpected availability during a prime summer period.
Officials said the city is starting to talk to organizations that might want to host an event, perhaps a music festival or a Taste of the Tonawandas, over those July weekends.
“I believe it'll be very fruitful for the city,” Fisher said. “It won't be Canal Fest, but it definitely has the possibility of becoming anything they want to make it.”
