Last Friday, I attended Holiday Wine Fest 2025 at Exhibition Place in Toronto. An evening affair, I arrived at six pm and stayed until eight, but didn’t enjoy myself. Let me tell you why.
I have formed some personal opinions with regards to this supposedly upscale tasting event and why, as a weekend entertainment option, Holiday Wine Fest should be avoided.
Carlos from S.W.O.L Tequila details what constitutes high-grade Blue Weber Agave.
Holiday Wine Fest is Designed to Make Money
Because I experienced the 2025 BeerFest in August, held just down the road at the Toronto Event Centre, I’m uniquely positioned to compare these two tasting festivals. They’re nothing alike, with regards to their marketing, layout, and the type of attendees they attract, but they’re similar in shape and format. It’s my opinion that Wine Fest is decidedly inferior, by design.
Wine Fest isn’t the upscale attraction to which it aspires. I’m using the word aspires because it seems to me this event wants to be more organized, efficient, and enjoyable. But the line-ups are just too long, and there’s not much else to do except stand in line. There are no lounges with sofas like at the annual Ski & Snowboard Show, nor are there any high-top tables around which folks could gather.
Heritage Hall event space is a long rectangle with booths on both sides and rope lines to regulate the crowd. There’s a DJ at the far end and five food trucks. You can see the cost of the meals in the photo below, which expands when clicked.
The food was approx. $20 for any menu item – the menu doesn’t change; the same truck and menu was here during the 2025 Toronto Fall Home Show.
The organizers want to create a happy occasion where people can enjoy wine and form honest opinions. Should any member of the public fall in love with a certain vintage, it’s reasonable to assume they’ll buy a bottle the next time they visit the LCBO. That’s the ideal scenario for both vendor and consumer, but it’s unlikely to work out that way in my opinion, because after waiting in line for thirty minutes, attendees are not in the right frame of mind to appreciate anything.
Tastings vs Fatigue
The event advertises unlimited tastings, but that’s misleading because the experience is limited by line-ups and individual fatigue. If you put a thousand consumers in a large room with less than forty suppliers, you create twenty-person-deep line-ups. They’re not fast-moving lines either, because the attendants dispensing the wine are programmed to describe their wares and deepen the experience with photographs and colourful stories about their wineries. That means thirsty consumers must stand and listen for five minutes, before being offered a choice, while everyone waits in line behind them nursing their empty glassware.
The portions are small because it’s just a tasting. Right? Each attendee is only issued two ounces in a fluted glass which is simply not enough to sustain them for the next thirty minutes as they wait for a refill.
When you have a rectangular event venue, it’s easy to line the sides with vendor booths. Doing this however means the center becomes congested with line-ups which are easily confused, because the lines are longer than the roped parameters. In the resulting melee, some magic happens. This is where strangers meet and groups get social. Someone asks, ‘are you in line for this? or that?’ But it’s when people get grumpy and don’t communicate that problems happen.
Angela Aiello bequeathed wine + juice curations from The Juice Wine Company.
Wine Fest Should Use Tokens, and Add More Attractions
There’s no need to manage drink tokens, everything is included with a single ticket, is how the marketing reads. But that’s the problem.
Unlike the Toronto Beer Festival, where people use tokens to selectively decide the drinks they wish to consume, and where they receive double the amount (4oz) without waiting in any lines, Wine Fest gives you a glass and unlimited access, which as I explained above is misleading because the crowd size creates long wait times which is very limiting.
In my observation, Wine Fest attendees don’t necessarily seek out the vintages they want to taste, but instead they look around to see which line-up is the shortest. Standing in endless lines really diminishes their enjoyment and the occasion becomes a contest of attrition, slowly wearing down even the most dedicated tasters.
Unlike the Toronto beer festival which has numerous carnival attractions, including jugglers, comedians and rock bands doing live shows at night, Holiday Wine Fest is decidedly bland. There’s a DJ playing neutral beats, an art camp in which people can paint empty wine bottles, and a wine school with seating for fifty people. That’s it.
At Holiday Wine Fest, the attendees are mostly young couples seeking a shared tasting experience. It’s a night out for them and that’s why the two-for-one tickets are so popular. This year’s event was featured in Date Night magazine. This is another point where the beer festival is different, as there people typically arrive and travel in groups.
Wine School was a Legit Highlight
One of the WineFest attractions always at capacity was the wine school lecture classroom.
Learning about wine can cause disagreements when a partner doesn’t like the idea.
The festival included educational sessions with wine professionals, and seminars designed to enrich guests’ appreciation and knowledge. The classroom was packed, as I said earlier, and in the photo above you can see one couple’s dilemma; the man wishes to stay and attend the seminar. He advises they wait to occupy the next available seats, but the female doesn’t want to wait. She didn’t come here to go to school.
Holiday Wine Fest, Ticketing and Value
Tickets for Holiday Wine Fest were available online beforehand, priced at $44.50 each plus fees. That was the best deal, a 2-for-1 couples’ package which sold out quickly. Last-minute tickets were priced considerably higher, especially if purchased at the door on the night of the event. My ticket, although free, said $94.00 Unlimited Access. Had I actually paid that amount, I’d be upset.
Rob Campbell is a digital marketing professional and trivia quiz master who worked in the Toronto film business for many years as a grip with a script. You can connect with Rob Campbell on LinkedIn, and hold him accountable or offer compliments with respect to this article or any of the material published in this magazine.
