History
The idea for the festival started in 1994, when the newly established Calgary Fireworks Festival Society started looking for a safe firework launch site. It took until 2001 to discover Elliston Park and its lake. At the same time, the International Avenue Arts and Culture Centre was making plans for a multicultural festival in Forest Lawn. The two non-profit societies presented plans for a joint festival at Calgary's International Avenue Business Revitalisation Zone (a city department), and the festival began in 2003, with an audience of almost 100,000, including city residents and tourists.
The site chosen for the fireworks display, Elliston Lake, is the second largest lake in Calgary (after Glenmore Reservoir), and was created close to a landfill site in 1978. The land has been owned by the city of Calgary since 1960 The area was used for agriculture for ten years, and Ellison Park opened in 1994. Over the years the park has been expanded by reclaiming land from the nearby landfill, bringing the total area to over 410 hectares, making it the city's second largest park (after Nose Hill).
Read more about this topic: Global Fest
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