Open Tuning Festival, a one-day music festival that takes place this Saturday, June 6 in Toronto’s Seaton Village, started with Chris McNeil casually telling a friend about an experience he had several weeks earlier. It was summer 2013 and Chris had just returned to Toronto from Paris, where he had come across a music festival called Fete de la Musique. There, he saw musicians playing in public spaces like plazas, parks, and cafes, in the open air, to people simply there to enjoy a summer’s day. Chris mentioned to his friend how he wished that something similar existed in Toronto.

To Chris’s surprise, his friend responded by saying: “OK. Let’s do it!”

“I had just been musing and was surprised by my friend’s response. Then I thought about it, and shared the idea with a few friends. They got excited about the idea, and that is how the festival started,” Chris says.

At the first Open Tuning Festival in June 2014, Chris and a group of volunteers – friends, musicians, parents and children living in the neighbourhood – organized and booked over 50 artists to play at 17 different stages all around Seaton Village, a neighbourhood just east of Christie Pits Park. All of the stages were on porches, front yards, and garages around the neighbourhood, with a main stage in nearby Vermont Square Park. People came out, walked and biked around the neighbourhood, and took in different bands playing throughout the day. The festival sparked so much joy that Chris and his team of volunteers decided to do it again the following year.

Since then, the whole festival has been run entirely on donations and volunteers. It takes about 100 volunteers every year to make Open Tuning happen, with most of the volunteers helping on the day of the festival itself. A core group of about ten people works to organize the festival in the winter and spring.

Chris is excited to keep the festival going because he is inspired by how much people love the festival and how he has seen it inspire so many people to play and perform music.

“My favourite part of the festival is seeing kids perform and seeing people react and seeing how that inspires people to want to play and even perform music themselves,” says Chris. “The festival has been going for over ten years and we now have performers who started out attending as kids. Attending the festival inspired them to play music and now they have their own bands and they are performing at the festival.” He also enjoys how it brings people out to enjoy the summer outside in Toronto.

Chris is also inspired by the way the festival has changed the way he sees and imagines public and private spaces.

“We realized that there are a lot of spaces that we don't usually see as being a space for live music – like front porches, or garages, or front lawns. Through this festival, we realized that we can transform these places into places of art and celebration.”

This Saturday, June 6, between 2pm and 10pm, Open Tuning Festival welcomes old fans and curious new attendees at stages all around Seaton Village. Chris recommends that people coming to the festival for the first time check the festival’s website (https://www.opentuning.org/) to see a map of this year’s 17 venues and a schedule of artists performing at each of them. There are also maps and schedules posted around the neighbourhood.

“I'd say pick a street – like Clinton Street, just north of Bloor – and start walking”, says Chris. “Be surprised and enjoy the music you find around corners.”

Chris also suggests to bring a bike for those who are cyclists. However, all of the festival’s venues are also within walking distance from each other.

The festival takes place this Saturday, June 6, in Seaton Village, from 2pm to 10pm. More information is available on its website, https://www.opentuning.org/.