NXNE could look a lot different this year

Toronto's North by Northeast (NXNE) conference and music festival is turning 22 this year. And after more than two decades spent proliferating culture in the city, it looks like it may be cooking up something new for 2016.

Today, the city's Economic Development Committee voted in favour of helping support the annual festival as it moves forward. It also recommended that the Committee's general manager report back on how Austin supports South by Southwest (SXSW) to see if we could emulate similar programs here. City Council will now consider this item on March 30.

Yet, this all becomes increasingly relevant because, as NOW reports in its most recent print edition, NXNE is looking to move outside of centrally located areas - such as Yonge-Dundas Square - to the Port Lands.

"This year," reads a letter from Councillors Paula Fletcher and Josh Colle to the Economic Development Committee sent prior to today's meeting, "The NXNE festival is proposing to transform 155 Cherry Street in the Port Lands into a festival venue to produce two days of shows on June 17 and 18, 2016 and to draw 10,000 people to the venue."

Colle and Fletcher asked the Committee to support the festival because NXNE in the Port Lands, as they write, "will spur tourism and create jobs and is in-line with the city's goal to show that Toronto is a leading music city in the world."

Photo by Matt Forsythe.