Overview SankofaFest is a free three-day festival of fashion, music and community on Sankofa Square, the one-acre plaza at Yonge and Dundas in downtown Toronto; in 2026 its closing Sankofa Day fell on August 23, the UNESCO day for remembering the slave trade and its abolition. Sankofa is a Twi word from Ghana's Akan people that means "go back and get it," and the festival's theme is Looking Back, Building Forward. It grew out of Sankofa Day, a one-day celebration in 2025, and ran as three days for the first time in 2026. The square itself, renamed from Yonge-Dundas Square in December 2023, is run by a City of Toronto board and hosts hundreds of events a year, surrounded by billboard screens. On site Each day has its own program. In 2026 the Friday was Fashion, Culture and Marketplace, with runway shows staged with African Fashion Week Toronto for designers from Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Jamaica, the United States and the UK, plus DJ sets, live art and digital installations. Saturday was The Block Party, DJs into the night and a headliner to close. Sunday was Community Day, the Sankofa Day itself: outdoor films with the Caribbean Film Festival, basketball clinics from HOOPQUEENS, a Black Canadian Women in Music showcase, Ghanaian drumming and youth zones. A 19-plus Sankofa Spirits Lounge ran the first two days, food vendors from Sankofa Kitchen to Gebeta lined the square, and the festival runs rain or shine. Audience Sankofa Square describes its crowd as youth and young professionals, families and community groups, tourists and downtown visitors, and creatives and creators. The intersection it sits on sees more than 100,000 pedestrians a day, and the festival runs free and unticketed in the middle of that foot traffic. Sunday's program is built for families, with youth zones, clinics and film. Talent and Influencers Mýa, whose hits include Case of the Ex and the Grammy-winning Lady Marmalade, headlined the 2026 Block Party after DJ LX, Steady, Afrikanah and Noisey Nadwa, with Deh'Ya Sound closing. The Friday bill carried DT The Artist, Jeffrey Benson, Blk Orchid, Steffaani and Borelson, and Tash Simone performed on the Friday and hosted the Sunday. Designers on the 2026 runway included TAF DZWA, Raw Pearlz, Black Urban Chic, Nuyu by Stacy and Africana by AJ. Brand presence In 2026 the Sankofa Spirits Lounge poured Moët Hennessy cocktails, Wray and Nephew and Appleton Estate rum and Grace Foods mixers, and Wray and Nephew backed the Block Party; SOCAN put on its own artist showcase on the Sunday. The top partner takes the festival's name, as in Sankofa 2026 presented by a brand, with first right of refusal on the following edition. Partner branding can run on the square's digital screens, on flags above them, on vinyl wraps around the columns under the canopy, on Muskoka chairs and patio furniture and on mesh scrims along the crowd flow, and the larger packages come with Environics audience reporting after the event.