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Why go
- The Stratford Festival is world-class and is the reason to come — four permanent theatres, a season running roughly April to November, and a thrust stage other theatres copied.
- Restaurant density far beyond what a city of 33,000 would otherwise carry, because the Festival delivers the audience that pays for it.
- The Avon River and its parkland run straight through the centre, with the swans that became the city's emblem.
- It is compact. Theatre, dinner and your room are usually within one walk of each other, which is the argument for staying the night rather than driving in from London.
History
Settled by Europeans in 1832 and named, along with its river, after Stratford-upon-Avon. It grew as a railway junction with a major locomotive shop, and by the early 1950s the end of steam was about to take that employment with it. Tom Patterson, a local journalist, proposed a Shakespeare festival on the strength of the shared name; the Stratford Shakespearean Festival became a legal entity on 31 October 1952, and on 13 July 1953 Alec Guinness spoke the first line of Richard III under a canvas tent on the riverbank, working for expenses. The bet paid, and the city has run on arts and tourism ever since.
Major sights
When it rains, or when the season is dark
Airports
Where things are
Photographs
credit: Postcard, no mark · CC0
credit: Robert Taylor from Stirling, ON, Canada · CC BY 2.0
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When to go
The heart of the Festival season, with all four theatres in repertory and the restaurants full. Book the play first and the room second — rooms go with the popular productions, not with the calendar.
The opening and closing weeks. Fewer productions running at once, but rates drop and tables are gettable. The better value if you only want to see one or two plays.
The Festival is dark. Stratford out of season is a pleasant small city with good restaurants and very little else to do, and some businesses cut their hours. Come for the theatre or come another month.
| Stratford Festival | April – November | Four theatres. Shakespeare is the mandate, but a season also carries classical repertory, contemporary work and at least one musical. |
| Return of the swans | Spring | The city's twenty-four white swans are put back on the Avon for the season. |
Getting there & around
Getting there. Via Rail's Toronto–Sarnia trains call at Stratford, and the station is a walk from the centre. By road it is about 50 minutes from London and a little over two hours from Toronto.
Getting around. Small enough to walk. The Avon Theatre is downtown; the Festival and Tom Patterson theatres are a riverside walk of fifteen to twenty-five minutes from the centre, and most hotels sit inside that radius. Downtown parking fills well before an evening curtain.