Glog
On the road with the Festival (March 31, 2009)
With the 2009 season around the corner, we have been busy with the preparations – not in our gardens – but in promoting the Gardens. Promoting the Gardens is a never-ending process and we choose to mix public relations, advertising, garden shows and lectures to promote the gardens in Quebec and beyond.
We took the International Garden Festival to Canada Blooms in Toronto last week. More than 100,000 people saw our garden and several thousand of them took part in planting the garden created by Montreal designers, Rita. “Come Play in our Garden” or “Passe-moi un sapin Rita” was one of the hits of the show, particularly with the many children admitted to Canada Blooms free of charge. The designers, Stéphane Halmäi-Voisard and Karine Corbeil, were on hand for the gala opening as were another design team, Furni (Devin Barrette and Mike Giles) who constructed the garden in their Montreal workshop and did the installation with Rita in two days of intense work.
Displaying gardens in an indoor venue is always a challenge. There is no natural décor and the lighting unnatural to say the least. The Rita garden, created for the 2008 edition of the Festival, is composed of green, spongy trees in three sizes. Visitors literally plant and then harvest the forest, each participant re-configuring the forest and making it their own. The participation of the public is what makes our Festival unique and it was a pleasure to see the garden enjoyed by so many with so much enthusiasm.
Our presence at Canada Blooms is just of several initiatives to promote the Gardens for the 2009 season. Our new web site is another. Have a look and let us know what you think. And to learn more about our next initiatives, watch this space.
