Four decades running out of a Queen Street West hotel
Canadian Music Week
What began as a trade conference grew into Canada's longest-running multi-day music and media event — combining an industry conference with a public festival of roughly 1,000 showcasing acts across downtown Toronto.
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Canadian Music Week grew out of the Record Music Industry Conference, launched by the trade publication The Record in the early 1980s. Neill Dixon was brought on in 1983 as programme director — his own backstory ties directly into Toronto's earlier folk-music infrastructure, having spent three years running Grumbles, a Yorkville-adjacent coffeehouse that featured Bruce Cockburn and Gordon Lightfoot.
From trade conference to public festival
In 1993, Dixon took over the event outright and added a public-facing showcase festival component. In its mature form, Canadian Music Week combined an industry conference — panels, workshops and an awards show for several thousand music-business professionals, historically headquartered at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel — with a public festival spanning roughly a week, featuring on the order of 1,000 showcasing acts across dozens of live venues throughout downtown Toronto, becoming, by most trade accounts, the longest-running multi-day Canadian music and media event.
A 2024 rebrand
Neill Dixon led the event for 42 years before announcing his retirement and the sale of Canadian Music Week in June 2024, to a partnership fronted by Randy Lennox, former CEO of Universal Music Canada. In November 2024 the new owners rebranded the event as Departure Festival + Conference, folding in additional programming beyond the original music focus.
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Sources
- Billboard Canada — Canadian Music Week: Neill Dixon Retires
- The Globe and Mail — In a Radical Departure, Canadian Music Week Will Now Be Called the Departure Festival + Conference
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