March 7-17 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival Laugh sooner and longer since this year’s show is coming at us earlier than its regular November time slot and has a longer than usual engagement with an 11 day run. Be entertained by over 40 North American sketch comedy troupes descending on the city and be sure to catch TOsketchfest’s Headliner Series featuring the comedy of Michael Ian Black among others.
March 8 Out of the Shadows This is the first event of its kind in Canada created to empower street-involved women (homeless, sex workers), and they’re doing so by giving the women a creative outlet to tell their stories. Through fashion, photography, and design, the women will be presented in the spotlight on a catwalk with money raised from the event going to All Saints Church-Community Centre and Street Health Community Nursing Foundation; hosted by supermodel Yasmin Warsame.
March 8-9 Toronto Irish Film Festival Ring in St. Patty’s early by embracing Irish culture through film. This festival is the third of its kind and includes a total of 20 Irish films, 15 of which will be making their Canadian premiere over the weekend. Opening night features a performance by the Irish Choral Society followed by a gala reception at Quinn’s Steakhouse and Irish Bar.
March 9 International Women’s Day Rally and March Technically, International Women’s Day is March 8, but Saturdays are better for rallies and marches, so get your woman-supporting hiney over to the OISE auditorium to start the day off right with a rally. The march then begins at 1pm and brings supporters to Ryerson for a fair with a dance later in the night to celebrate over 100 years of IWDs.
March 9-10 Drake General Store Warehouse Sale While the sale starts Friday, you won’t be shopping the pre-sale goods without an invite, so plan your warehouse sale excursion for Saturday or Sunday. Clothing will be up to 70% off and Pendleton will be supplying even more goodies for the event. Also check out the sale’s quirky and unique furniture and odds n’ ends.
March 9-10 FanExpo Toronto ComicCon This is your opportunity to bag a hobbit. Make the trek down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this weekend to check out costumes and art from your favourite movies and TV shows, shop the many retail booths, partake in a workshop, or meet the stars of films like Lord of the Rings (Samwise Gamgee!) and shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Grab an autograph, catch a Q&A session, become a celeb’s best friend — the ComicCon is your oyster!
March 9-16 Game of Thrones: The Exhibition This free exhibit is curated by HBO and the first of its kind for the company. The show is only making stops in five cities and Toronto made the cut, and kicks off the tour. The exhibit will feature props, costumes, weaponry, photos, and more from the show’s first couple of seasons as well as some from season 3. There will also be an interactive game giving fans the opportunity to join in on the battle at Blackwater Bay from season 2.
March 9-23 Toronto Urban Photography Festival Organized by the [frame]works photography collective, this Toronto-wide photography festival aims to question what qualifies as urban in the city, and street in a photo. By attempting to analyze and potentially rewrite what makes a typical, contemporary urban landscape through photography, this event wants to incite conversation amongst the city’s photographers and theorists on “how the city is imagined and viewed as part of daily human fabric.”
March 9-24 Comic Book Heroes Part of TIFF Bell Lightbox’s March Break series, super hero aficionados will be able to bask in the glory of two full weeks of back to back hero-movies. Including films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Mask, and Superman to name a few, no kind of comic book hero gets left behind in this festival featuring the animated, the classics, and even the Powerpuff Girls.
March 9 – September 2 Game On 2.0 This is the largest touring exhibition on the evolution of video games, and it’s making its first Canadian appearance at the Ontario Science Centre. The exhibition gives attendees the opportunity to play one of the over 150 video games offered, find out what goes into making a game, and check out some original concept and character art as well as learn about the relationship between films and computer games.
March 10 Microsoft Windows 8 Workshop This workshop is a first for its organizers: DevTO, HTML5 Toronto, Toronto JS, and Make Web Not War — who are looking to plan even more such workshops in the next few months. Held at The Burroughes, attendees of the event will learn how to design their own apps and get them off the ground for Windows 8. There will also be a ‘install-fest’ to ensure people are setup with the tools necessary to create the apps.
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Hallae Khosravi is an intern at Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @hallaek.
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