What is meowfest?
meowfest is a cat festival full of food, fun and most importantly: felines! Every year, cat lovers gather from around the globe for a cat-stravaganza of music, workshops, face painting, prizes, food vendors, shopping, adoptable kittens, meet-and-greets with celebrity cats, and much more—all in support of animal shelters and rescue organizations. Since our first event in 2018, we have raised $84,663 for shelter kitties!
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meowfest 2018 Vancouver
The first ever meowfest took place at the Yaletown Roundhouse and helped facilitate over 30 on-site kitten adoptions and raised over $10,000 for cats and kittens in need! Some humans shopped for cat home decor, art, food, accessories, toys, and more, while others received air brushed cattoos and facepaint, or snapped pics in our photobooths. A variety of food trucks sold everything from vegan ice cream sandwiches, to Mexican food, to craft mac and cheese. Headliners included Kitten Lady, The Cat Photographer, Nala Cat, Luna Rose, Pudge, Klaus and BenBen.
meowfest 2019 Toronto
Hosted at Evergreen Brickworks, meowfest raised $16,300 for shelter cats! These funds helped vulnerable kitties receive the quality care they needed, and ultimately find their forever families. After shopping though a huge selection of vendors selling everything from jewelry made from fallen whiskers, to cat trees, guests posted up at the Drinking Fountain to sip on meowmosas and chow down on vegan hot dogs. The crowd went wild for iAmMoshow, who took the stage by storm and other headliners included Kitten Lady, The Cat Photographer, Venus the Two Face Cat, The Dark Lord Nala Cat, Pudge, and Klaus & Juno.
meowfest 2020 Virtual Events
meowfest debuted as Virtual for the first time ever in July 2020. It was such a success that we returned in November with a holiday edition! Attendees were playing games, winning prizes, watching tutorials, participating in workshops, shopping and more, all from the comfort of their home! These online events raised $14,055 for local animal organizations.
meowfest 2022 Vancouver
Purrsented by Catit, meowfest returned in-person on August 20th, 2022 at Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver. The event featured food and beverage trucks, a scavenger hunt, meet-and-greets with local feline stars, a live DJ, dozens of vendors, a cat costume contest, a human-sized scratching post, and much more. Langley Animal Protection Society hosted an adoptable Kitty Corner, where all 20 kittens found their forever homes that day. Our 2022 festival raised a total of $23,995 for LAPS and Tiny Kittens—our largest donation to date!
meowfest 2023 in Toronto & Vancouver
meowfest returned to Toronto on July 23rd, 2023 at The Warehouse Venue. meowfest 2023 also returned to Vancouver on August 19th at the Rocky Mountaineer Station. We are grateful for our Vancouver and our Toronto community for showing us so much love and support this year.
Both events featured several vendors, and attendees could shop for everything from cat food, accessories, toys, art prints to delicious food and drinks. The events also featured meet-and-greets, live DJs, scavenger hunts, amazing prizes, a human-sized cat tree. Both events also saw successful speed dating results, with 13 matches in Toronto and 10 matches in Vancouver. Severals cats and kittens found their furever homes at both meowfest Vancouver and Toronto. 30 cats were adopted in Toronto, and 13 cats were adopted in Vancouver.
Our 2023 festival raised $12,690.00 in Toronto for Toronto Cat Rescue and $11,972.50 in Vancouver for LAPS - for a total of $24,663.00 money raised at meowfest 2023.
meowfest 2023
Video by: Wimpy Leung
Justine Cheng
Event manager
Justine is a fearless introvert and recently-turned-cat lover who enjoys hiking, biking and yoga. Every year she tries a new activity that pushes her out of her comfort zone, from triathlons to cycling events.
Olivia Canlas
Event Director
Aside from serving as meowbox's head of opurrations, Olivia is a world traveller, aspiring polyglot, and cat mom to office mischief-makers Zac and Harvey. She never turns down ketchup chips or a good theme party.
Emma Benson
Marketing Coordinator
Growing up on a farm, Emma has always been a huge animal lover. In her free time, you can find her hiking a mountain, going to the gym or booking her next ticket to somewhere in the world. Emma is also bilingual as she grew up speaking both French & English.