Overview Supercrawl is a free weekend of music, art, fashion, theater and food on James Street North in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, and it started in 2009 as a one-day party on a single block; by 2024 it covered more than two kilometers of downtown streets. It falls on the second weekend of September, Friday through Sunday, and the 2026 edition was its 18th. Sonic Unyon produces it and TD presents it. Its founders, a team of Hamilton artists and community builders, had based their own business in the James North neighborhood since 1997. On site In 2026 music ran on the TD Stage, the Hamilton Hammers/TD Coliseum North Stage, the Grant Avenue Studio Stage, the Mulberry Coffeehouse Stage and the King William Beer Garden, and Saturday programming went from noon to 1 a.m. Beer gardens sit at each end of the festival beside the two main stages, and the VIP lounge sits between a beer garden and the main stage at the end of James North, on a riser with its own bar and washrooms. More than 40 food trucks line four city blocks, and over 150 artisan vendors from across Ontario fill the artisan zone. The 2026 weekend also carried a fashion tent, a drag show, Hamilton Pro Wrestling, 3-on-3 basketball, a skateboarding invitational and mini putt, with Big Nazo roaming the crowd. Audience The survey in the festival's 2025 sponsorship deck put 66.5% of the crowd from Hamilton and the surrounding area, 28.4% traveling 40 kilometers or more and 5.1% from outside Canada. Of those surveyed, 64% had been before and 46% came on more than one day. Crowds are thinnest in the early afternoon, and the festival advises dog owners to come then. Talent and Influencers William Prince closed the TD Stage on the 2026 Saturday and Protest the Hero closed the north stage, with Aysanabee, Mariel Buckley and The Grapes of Wrath also headlining and more than 100 performers on the bill. Cadence Weapon sat for a Sunday afternoon interview in the authors' tent. Past headliners include Broken Social Scene, Arkells, Spoon, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bahamas, Charles Bradley, Passion Pit and Daniel Lanois. Track record Attendance: 3,000 in 2009, more than 285,000 in 2024. The 2024 festival produced an estimated $32 million in economic impact under the Ontario tourism ministry's regional model. Supercrawl won the 2015 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year. In 2026 programming passed from founding programmer Tim Potocic to festival director Lisa La Rocca. Brand presence TD presents the festival and puts its name on the main stage. Partners buy in at four levels, presenting, gold, silver and bronze, and each zone is sold on its own: live music, art and the Family Zone at gold; VIP, performance art, sports, fashion and the beer gardens at silver; dance and theater, author talks, the artisan zone and the culinary zone at bronze. Every level carries VIP access and a place on the website, e-newsletters, stage videos and social channels, and only the presenting partner gets the radio, TV and print ads. Supercrawl Presents, the festival's concert series in Hamilton venues, runs through the rest of the year.