Juno Fest, WestJet Street Party, and Whistler Brewing SUMOs

I’m pretty sure I didn’t fully grasp the scale of the upcoming Juno Awards and its satellite events until I started downloading PDFs and thumbing through the pages upon pages of schedules, venue maps and artist listings.

The actual Awards broadcast will be Sunday March 29th and on top of the Juno Cup, you can catch 100’s of concerts around the city starting Thursday March 26th as a part of the festival events listed below:

Juno Fest
Juno Fest is Friday March 27th and Saturday March 28th. You will be able to purchase tickets or wristbands ($30) for performances at anywhere from the Railway Club, Bourbon Street, Doolins, the Yale, Libra Room, Pub 340 and even the Penthouse (note: these are 19+ venues).

To top it off, all shows have at least 4-5 performances in the line up. Daniel Wesley will be at Richards on Richards, Odds and Armchair Cynics will be at the Roxy, The Cellar will host The Februarys, and Hey Ocean! will be on stage at the Media Club.

There are so many concerts that I can’t possibly list so check out this full PDF (or venue map PDF) or the Facebook event for more details and make sure to clear your schedule that weekend if you’re a fan of live music.

WestJet Street Party
The WestJet Street Party will start Thursday March 26th run right up until Sunday with 3 stages setup downtown around the 800 block of Granville Street. On the Vancouver Radio Stage you’ll be able to catch Hot Hot Heat, Divine Brown, The Trews, and more.

Early bird tickets for this are on sale for $15, you can purchase them from Ticketmaster for $20, or ClubZone as well.

Note: If you have a Juno Fest wrist band I have been told that will get you into the WestJet stage area as well. Also, 300 tickets are being released “at the door”.

The Street Party will also include the Juno Fan Fare on Saturday March 28th from 110:0am until 4:00pm, hosting several autograph/meet n’ greet sessions with the likes of City and Colour, Divine Brown, Faber Drive, Aaron Pritchett, The Trews, The Stills and more. The Juno Fan Fare shows and autograph sessions are *free* for the public.

Whistler Brewing Company presents SUMOs at the JUNOs
Whistler Brewing Company is the exclusive beer supplier for the 2009 Juno Awards and as such they’ll have a presence on Granville during the WestJet Street Party (and will also be hosting some sweet VIP parties). During the Street Party you can stop by their location, hop into a Sumo suit and battle your way to some great prizes.

The winner of their SUMOs at the JUNOs tournament will be handed tickets to the Juno Awards ceremony on Sunday. The Sumo Wrestling competition will be March 27th and 28th from 4-6:30pm, and March 29th from 1:00-3:00pm.

Tickets to the actual ceremonies Sunday evening at GM Place are also still available and I’ll have a liveblog up from the Awards on Sunday as well.