page_title: Servus Heritage Festival
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Servus Heritage Festival / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Group attending presentation at the Heritage Festival Preparatory Meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, taken May 21, 2015 by Andy Strohkirch
context_page_description: The Servus Heritage Festival is a three-day festival honouring Alberta's cultural heritage and cultural diversity, which is held annually over the August long weekend in William Hawrelak Park in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The Servus Credit Union has been title sponsor since 2007.
  The festival has been organized annually by the Edmonton Heritage Festival Association since 1976. At that time eleven communities united with the intent to display their cultures by offering traditional cuisine, entertainment, interpretive materials, and crafts to visitors.
  In 2015, its 40th anniversary, the festival included more than 85 different cultures in over 60 pavilions, where people present their cultural roots and local and national communities. The tents feature food, entertainment, artwork and crafts, and clothing, and teach visitors about various cultures with displays including photos, paraphernalia, and stories.
context_section_description: The Edmonton Heritage Festival, held annually in Edmonton's Hawrelak Park, is the world's largest three day celebration of multiculturalism. During the August long weekend, tented pavilions representing up to 100 countries and cultures offer over showings of cultural dance and song at shared stages, folk arts and cultural displays in individual tents, home life vignettes, and cultural foods from up to 70 kitchens. The festival requires over 2,200 volunteers over the course of the three days and uses almost 300 tents spread over 60 hectares. Onsite attendance of the 2017 Heritage Festival was 480,000.
  The festival is a family-friendly, alcohol and tobacco free event. There is no admission charge to the site, nor is there admission to watch the up to 900 cultural folk music and dance shows on up to 50 shared stages. Admission to over 70 cultural displays is also free. Each county's set of display tents, known as Pavilions, offers a sampling of their unique cultural food and drinks. The organizers of the festival encourage visitors to donate to the local food bank.
  William Hawrelak Park offers no public parking (except bicycles) during the festival, but is connected well to the City of Edmonton Transit through exclusive Park'n'Ride services. The park is open throughout the day between 5am and 11pm. Visitors are asked to leave their dogs at home.
  The attendance of the festival has increased from 20,000 people in 1976 to 85,000 in 1977, and reached 320,000 in 1982, a record that was matched or beaten by the approximately 320,000 to 340,000 attendees during the 2011 festival. The 2017 festival saw an estimated 498,000 visitors over the three days, with a record Sunday of an estimated 348,000.
  The 2019 event will run from August 3 to 5.
caption: Preparatory Meeting for the 40th annual Servus Heritage Festival in 2015
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