The 琉璃神社 Kiwanis Festival celebrates the successful close of their 2016 Festival鈥攖he 90th consecutive year running in the Okanagan Valley鈥攚ith a Gala Concert at the Mary Irwin Theatre this Sunday, May 15.

Many of the top award-and-scholarship-winning singers, pianists, instrumentalists, and dancers are set to give an encore performance to celebrate the end of the festival.

This year鈥檚 festival saw entries soar by 30 per cent and audience counts rise by even more.  The 2016 Festival hosted over 2,500 participants, entertained over 3,500 guests.  The complete festival logged 182 hours of performances and adjudications. If that had been back-to-back, it would have been seven and a half continuous 24-hour days of music, dance and speech.

We also logged over 1,000 volunteer hours and brought in 12 professional adjudicators from BC, Alberta, and the US.

The Gala Concert reflects the wide-ranging and unifying nature of the festival that gathers in teachers and students from all performing arts disciplines with a single, three-part goal: to perform, to learn, to grow.

Before the start of the Gala Concert, the festival will hand out over $10,000 in awards and scholarships to many of the more than 130 deserving, award-winning performers and groups.

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. with general seating, so come early. Like all festival events, the Gala Concert is free to attend and open to the public.

For more information visit www.kelownakiwanisfestival.com to learn more about this long-running event.