Neptune Theatre announces its 2023-2024 season
The buzz in the air was so alive today at Neptune theatre that the whole afternoon felt like five minutes away from curtain time. But the show at hand was actually the announcement of the theatre’s upcoming season. Here’s what the venerable stage has in store for 2023-2024: Summer sees two musical reviews taking the…
A long-awaited meteor and a Greek philosopher meet in Halifax Harbour this week
The last significant meteor showers to grace the Atlantic Canadian skies came at the end of 2022 with the Geminids, which peak annually in mid-December. The next sighting should be far easier to spot, if less spectacular: The 55,534-tonne NYK Meteor container ship arrived in Halifax from Caucedo, Dominican Republic at the start of the…
Halifax council is clearing the (very low) bar of being a competent government
Our city councillors are doing better than their provincial and federal peers these days, although that can sometimes be hard to appreciate. Over the last week, HRM council debated how the public’s money should be used and, mostly, made good decisions for the future of the city. Council didn’t cut arts funding. Instead, councillor Waye…
Jerry Seinfeld is coming to Halifax August 11
Better put in for the vacation day now: Jerry Seinfeld is performing in Halifax on August 11, as part of the new Great Outdoors Comedy Festival. The gig will be held at the Garrison Grounds on Citadel Hill. The legendary comedian who c0-created the most successful TV comedy ever (that’d be the sitcom Seinfeld) is…
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Engineers Nova Scotia, protecting Nova Scotians since 1920
Every year in March, the Canadian engineering community celebrates National Engineering Month. In-person and virtual events are held across the provinces and territories with the intent to showcase the diversity, ingenuity and resourcefulness of engineers as they work to find innovative solutions to everyday problems. In this province, engineers are licensed by Engineers Nova Scotia,…
Digital love: Halifax talks sex and dating in the age of the internet
Decades from now, when historians look back at life in the early aughts, 2010s and 2020s, there’ll be a heck of a story to tell about the internet and the ways it changed how we look for love. (Or if not love, then, y’know… at least a little fun.) From the earliest chat rooms (remember…
This week in Halifax
The days are getting longer, finally—and trust that Halifax has your back with lots of fun ways to fill them. This week, the Monday-to-Wednesday slump isn’t even a slouch, thanks to a drag show stuffed with local legends and a live concert featuring Halifax rapper Kye Clayton and New Brunswick up-and-comer Kylie Fox. Make some…
Council’s proposed 55% cut to the arts is dead—but the sector still needs more
“We don’t need to be cutting at this time, we need to be increasing at this time—and I think the councillors really heard that,” Susanne Chui, co-artisitc director of Mocean Dance tells me, speaking by phone days after she and about 30 other concerned citizens took to city hall to make a case against a…
Theatre review: Fall On Your Knees stands up to the pressure
I hate to admit it, but I was skeptical. When Hannah Moscovitch—one of Canadian theatre’s brightest-glittering luminaries—told me that her two-part, six-hour adaptation of the classic novel Fall On Your Knees was stuffed with songs, I couldn’t picture how this story could swing into musical territory: Ann-Marie MacDonald’s opus about the Piper family begins with the…
Cyclesmith ex-employees allege unfair treatment, culture of “mundane misogyny”
Antonia Chircop can pinpoint the moment her fears about how she was seen and treated by Cyclesmith’s management were confirmed: She was in a closed-door meeting with two of the north end bike shop’s senior managers. In the weeks leading up to the meeting, Chircop—a cycling enthusiast who’d joined the company as a sales associate…
Short-term rental regulations are coming to Halifax this fall. Here’s what you need to know.
Airbnbs and other short-term rental units will soon fall under more stringent regulations in Halifax. On Tuesday night, in the wake of a crowded public hearing, Halifax councillors voted 13-3 in favour of restricting how short-term rentals—homes, apartments or condos rented for 28 days or less at a time—can operate in the region going forward.…
This weekend in Halifax
The weekend is as good as here, so it’s time to make the most of it! Here is The Coast’s expert-picked guide to what’s happening around Halifax from Feb 23-26, from an orchestral rendition of a Dr. Dre album to The Beaches’ Halifax concert to the return of the Halifax Black Film Festival. Get ready…
Eyelevel gallery prepares to unearth art-filled time capsule from 2006
Two thousand and six: It was the year Facebook opened its platform to the world; the era when peak tabloid culture christened Britney, Paris and Lindsay sharing a cab “the bimbo summit” and the year Pluto was downgraded from a full-sized planet to a dwarf planet. In Halifax, it was also the year that the…
Can you help us find Halifax’s independent grocers?
We here at The Coast are hard at work on a series of stories about Nova Scotia’s food insecurity. Journalism that only highlights problems without offering solutions is not very helpful. So, as a part of this food series we will also be creating a guide to help you defeat two of the final bosses…
How cutting Halifax’s police budget could save the arts
Building permit fees will be going up 25% on April 1, a move that will net the HRM an additional $1.45 million in revenue. These fees are governed by the Fees By-Law F-200. This fee hasn’t been adjusted since 1997, and currently sits at $5.50 per $1,000 of the estimated value. It will go up…
A boatload of oil and one terrible name is bound for Halifax Harbour this week
Changing a thing’s name comes with one simple rule: No matter the domain—ships, stadiums, stage names, sports teams—you have to make sure that whatever new name you’ve chosen is better than the one that came before it. A name change can be good (think Washington or Cleveland’s sports teams ditching their racist mascots), kinda-confusing-but-cool (Prince…
Feist announces Halifax Jazz Festival show July 11
Regardless of the forecast, this summer’s gonna be a hot one for music lovers. On the heels of Jazz Fest’s first headliner announcement—The Fleet Foxes—the annual event is now naming another big act: Feist. The 11-time-Juno-winning, “1,2,3,4” singer will play the Jazz Fest main stage (located on the waterfront) on July 11 at 8:15pm. Related…
This week in Halifax
Get ready to light up the group chat: here’s your going-out guide for February 20-22, proof that there’s tons to do and see in the city every night of the week. See Fall On Your Knees onstage (until March 5) Ann-Marie MacDonald’s blockbuster book about a Cape Breton family across eras has been adapted for…
Catching up with Classified
When The Coast reaches Luke Boyd by phone, he’s just leaving the studio, still high on the new music he’s making that he anticipates will drop this spring. “I still go to the studio every day, because I still got the same hobby as when I was a 15 year old kid,” the rapper better…
Season 2 of Jack Reacher series might be shooting in Halifax in April
If the Nova Scotian film industry has, of late, been making hay while the sun shines (2021-22 was a record year for the industry, which the government says contributed about $180 million to Nova Scotia’s economy), consider this a sign that there’s zero percent chance of clouds in upcoming forecasts: The Coast hears industry chatter…
Status quo means budget woe for Halifax
The $104.6 million department of public works budget passed after a two-day budget meeting this week. The public works budget will get a bit of a shock in future years as the province gave the city approximately $14 million in asphalt liabilities. In this year’s budget, the city allocated $6 million to deal with the…
Halifax might become one of Canada’s worst-funded cities for the arts
Is Halifax heading headfirst into an identity crisis? The rapid clip at which the city’s been changing—we are the second-fastest growing urban area in the country, according to the most recent Statistic Canada numbers—makes fact of the fast-shifting sand beneath our feet. It’s been accompanied by the feeling that there’s a new building sprouting on…
Alehouse bouncers facing assault charges back in court Friday morning
Four months and two city blocks from where Halifax Alehouse bouncers Alexander Pishori Levy and Matthew Brenton Day are accused of assaulting a patron on an October night, the pair will appear at the Halifax provincial courthouse to enter their pleas on the morning of Friday, Feb. 17. Both Levy, 37, and Day, 33, face…
The Mid-East Food Centre is back in Halifax’s north end—and its owner says it’s here to stay
It’s an unusually balmy February afternoon in Halifax’s north end when Abdulsalam Mohammad (the junior, not the senior) greets a visitor, mid-delivery of another shipment of imported grocery products. The sight itself is a familiar, even expected one: For the past two weeks, it’s been a hive of activity at the corner of North and…
Haligonians spill the tea on their worst dates
Dating can be difficult at the best of times: Where else are you thrust into conversation with a near-stranger while both of you are trying to decide, in real time, whether you want to hook up, get married and have kids, or never see each other again? It’s a miracle that any one of us…
This weekend in Halifax
The days are slowly getting longer and Halifax’s calendar of events is filling up with all kinds of must-see, must-do fun, from must-see music shows by some of the city’s biggest stars to snagging seats at a sold-out screening of a buzzy Oscar nominee. Here’s where to go and what to do to maximize those…
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The importance of urban timber salvage
Urban forests are an important part of our cities; they help to cool our homes by providing shade and they add to the beauty of our local environment. Nobody likes the thought of trees having to come down, but unfortunately there are many scenarios where it’s necessary for the safety of the surrounding area. “Some…
Halifax launches new Youth Poet Laureate program
Y’know the old saying that the earth isn’t given to us by our parents but is on loan to us from our kids? It’s the sort of sentiment that burns hot on the forebrain of Halifax’s Poet Laureate Sue Goyette: A neon imperative guiding missions like, say, Write Your Heart Out (the youth writer’s circle…
Nova Scotia’s primary care waitlist is growing (again). And the province is falling behind in its reporting.
When a heart issue sent Lunenburg’s Leanne Morin to the emergency department while visiting family in Hawaii, the ER staff recommended she follow up with her doctor in Nova Scotia. The only problem? She doesn’t have one. Leanne and her husband, Joel, have been on the province’s primary care waitlist ever since moving from Montreal…
Your definitive guide to a successful first date in Halifax
Anyone who dates in Halifax knows just how small this city is. Looking for love in the HRM requires patience, openness and the ability to throw your dignity right out the window. It’s humbling and often demoralizing, especially the first date. But good things don’t happen unless you try, and and first dates are a…
A bullfighter and a politician meet in Halifax Harbour this week. Sort of.
One of Halifax’s greatest strange-but-true elements of local lore is that, somewhere at the bottom of the Bedford Basin, there are about 20 to 30 Volvos sitting on the harbour floor. There’s a lengthier story to be told about how they got there—one that Jalopnik’s Máté Petrány gets into here—but the short (and unconfirmed) version…
Daniel Romano’s Outfit announces Halifax show May 19
Indie rock wunderkind Daniel Romano announced today that he and his band will be playing Halifax on May 19. Tickets for The Marquee Ballroom gig—which features newcomer Julianna Riolino, label mate to Romano, as the opener—go on sale Friday, Feb 12 at noon via Sonic Concert’s website. Daniel Romano’s star skyrocketed to a new strata…
Go ahead and confess a sexual secret you’ve never told anyone
The prompt on the Sex + Dating Survey is simple: “Confess a sexual secret that you’ve never told anyone else.” The responses are a kaleidoscope of Halifax’s passions and fears, brags and wishes. Maybe it’s because the survey is a truly safe space, anonymous and judgment-free, that people are willing to bare their sexual souls.…
Coming attractions: What Halifax wants to try next in sex
If you want to try having sex with multiple partners at the same time, you’re not alone. Or maybe you are alone, because it’s something you’d like to do, not what you’ve already done. Whatever. Let’s just say that lots of people would be up for getting down with lots of people. The top 100…
Talk dirty to me: The results of The Coast’s 2023 Sex + Dating Survey
If there’s one thing Haligonians love more than sex, it might well be talking about it. And just as Halloween means candy and a Nor’easter means a cupboard full of storm chips, Valentine’s Week in Halifax can only mean one thing: It’s time for the results of The Coast’s annual Sex + Dating Survey. More…
Haligonians share the most cringe-worthy things they’ve said—and heard—during sex
Love is a language in itself, but sometimes that other language—the spoken word—fails us in our most intimate moments: With our pants around our ankles. Haligonians are a witty bunch (or we like to think so, anyway), but even the quickest of wits isn’t immune to the occasional bedroom blunder. Sometimes even a major one.…
First look at Salt + Ash, downtown Halifax’s hottest new restaurant
You might smell like a bonfire—in a good way, that cozy summertime way—when you leave the Salt + Ash Beach House (1741 Lower Water Street downtown Halifax). Salt + Ash opened its doors earlier this month, the sixth restaurant to launch in the Queen’s Marque district at the hands of the Freehand Hospitality group (which…
The 2023 budget could make Halifax better forever
HRM’s budget debates rolled on this week. At Wednesday’s meeting, after some mild scrutiny, the budget committee passed the city IT department’s $32-million budget. It also passed the Property, Fleet & Environment budget valued at $48 million. Friday morning, the committee also passed the$12.9 million human resources and corporate communications budget. For this budget, council…
Haligonians share their most awkward run-ins with exes
The Halifax peninsula is a small, small place: You never know who you’ll bump into when you’re fighting over fresh tomatoes at the Seaport Farmers Market or scarfing down a 2am poutine on Pizza Corner. More times than not, that compact coziness is a good thing—walkability! friends! chats with your neighbours!—until the moment it abso-friggin’-lutely…
Province blames record COVID death count on “a lag in reporting”
COVID hasn’t given many surprises lately in Nova Scotia. An outbreak of Kraken subvariant infections, which seemed to be an imminent threat at the start of 2023, thankfully hasn’t happened. There was an increase in new cases around the December holiday season, then cases stabilized to about 650 per week. The number of people admitted…
Hannah Moscovitch leads a theatre revolution from Halifax
There was a time—before her Governor General win, before she’d co-write a musical that’d take New York by storm, before she was a known quantity even outside the sphere of Canadian theatre—that playwright Hannah Moscovitch would sit in an idle Halifax cafe, clattering away on a laptop while her copy of Cape Breton’s most famous…
Coast readers: What’s so super about the Super Bowl?
Where were you when the dream died and reality closed in? Maybe it’s still alive for you, or maybe it never was, but I’ve been asking myself that question for a few years now. Maybe more than a few. I am not a football evangelist anymore, but I used to be. Time was, I could…
Risking it all: This is how far Haligonians have gone for a hook-up
Love is in the air this month—and so, it seems, is pulling out all the stops to getting laid, according to Haligonians’ replies to our 2023 Sex + Dating Survey. More than 1,200 Coast readers took part in this year’s 15th annual survey—and dear God, some of you people are thirsty. Not, er, that there’s…
Everything you need to know about HRM council’s Feb. 7 meeting
The HRM is updating its garbage plan. The Solid Waste Strategy is getting underway, with the first step being public consultation. This is a wide-ranging strategy to reduce the amount of garbage the city produces. But in spite of all of the work that will go on behind the scenes, should this plan be successful,…
Coast readers: Drinking less alcohol is definitely a thing
You almost have to feel bad for alcohol. After a couple flush years in the early part of the pandemic that saw consumption go up, along comes 2023 and the booze news is bad. First the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction brings out new guidelines for drinking and health that say “it is…
Halifax Jazz Fest announces Fleet Foxes as first 2023 event headliner
Just the info we needed as the wind chill dips to minus 10 degrees today: Summer 2023 is shaping up to be a hot one in Halifax, thanks to Jazz Fest’s latest announcement. The summertime fest—which runs July 11 to 16—is returning to its longtime home base, the open-air lot where Salter Street meets the…
A giant load of cars and one big friggin’ ship is coming to Halifax Harbour
There’s an old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. My coastal colleague, Zoë Ducklow, has been following the offshore comings and goings of vessels near Victoria, BC in her twice-weekly Westshore newsletter for months. It’s a fun glimpse at what’s happening in the Pacific Northwest’s waters—and, well, I figured: Why not here,…
Adam Baldwin adds second Halifax show to almost-sold-out east coast tour
Beloved Dartmouth singer-songwriter Adam Baldwin kept busy during lockdown by keeping spirits high with his weekly livestreams that were the perfect midpoint between unfiltered authenticity and pro-level production value. The fact that Baldwin’s Chin-Up Sessions continued to be a fan-powered phenomenon even after the overall novelty of the medium began to wane says a lot…
This week in Halifax
The days are slowly getting longer and Halifax’s calendar of events is filling up with all kinds of must-see, must-do fun, from new plays showing at Neptune Theatre to free film screenings. Here’s where to go and what to do to get your week off to a fun start. Catch the African Heritage Month screening…
Neptune Theatre announces new Executive Director
Neptune Theatre, the province’s largest stage, announced yesterday that it will be getting a new Executive Director as of April 10. It’s the latest leadership shake-up in the city’s cultural sector that’s seen almost every organization refreshing its leadership. When it comes to Neptune, however, new ED Kimberlee Stadelmann is arriving from a 15-year-stint at…
These Halifax artists are teaching teens the power of the written word
Sue Goyette, Halifax’s Poet Laureate, knows kids today are facing a lot—but she also knows they are more than rising to the occasion. “Like, look at Greta [Thunberg]: When I go to the Friday climate marches, those young people that were organizing it would get the mic, and talk in poems,” she says, speaking with…
Everything you need to know about the 2023 Halifax Black Film Festival
A celebration of Black filmmakers and their creations, the Halifax Black Film Festival sees over 70 flicks from 10 countries coalesce right here for a smorgasbord of storytelling. Alongside features and shorts, there’s also industry panels and meet-and-greets perfect for the next Ava Duvernay looking to get into the biz. What is the official name?…
Coast readers: How has inflation changed your grocery shopping habits?
The average Haligonian’s grocery bill rose by 10.5% in 2022, according to the latest Canada’s Food Price Report. That’s more than any year since the 1980s—and if food researchers’ forecasts are correct, we’re in for another 5-7% jump in 2023. Those figures come from a collaborative report by researchers at Dalhousie University, the University of…
A Groundhog Day to remember
It was a dramatic day for the prognosticating rodents of Canada. Shubenacadie Sam, Nova Scotia’s most famous groundhog, saw her shadow at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park on the morning of Feb. 2, signalling another six weeks of winter. Meanwhile, Ontario’s Wiarton Willie’s shadow, or lack thereof, stands in stark opposition to Sam’s prophecy. Thus splitting…
This Weekend in Halifax
Yes, yes, the nights are long and the days cold, but that excuse isn’t gonna cut it this weekend: There is simply too much interesting, noteworthy stuff happening in Halifax as February starts for you to spend time couch-bound. Instead, light up the group text with some of the following options and find yourself some…
Halifax, here’s 9 exciting ways to celebrate African Heritage Month 2023
As African Heritage Month kicks off this year, you’re in luck: Halifax has no shortage of fun, informative and dynamic ways to celebrate and centre facets of the Black experience. In particular, the following 9 events have caught Team Coast’s eye as can’t-miss Sure Things: Calypso celebration (Feb 2) The Canadian Museum of Immigration at…
How ending the price freeze helps Loblaw get more of a monopoly
The Real Atlantic Superstore and its parent company, Loblaw, ended a price freeze on its No Name products this week. This price freeze, if you listen to Superstore, was a way to benevolently do some good. When the price freeze started in October of 2022 people were upset. In October people believed that Loblaws was…
The Lemonheads announce Halifax show March 30
Halifax, check on the Gen Xers in your life today: They’re most likely reeling from the fact that The Lemonheads–a huge alt-rock band with a longtime cult following—are coming to Halifax March 30. Performing at The Light House Arts Centre, the band is going to play its breakthrough record, It’s A Shame About Ray, front…
DND comes under fire in public feedback session on proposed Hartlen Point warship testing site
If Tuesday night’s public forum on the Department of National Defense’s plans for the future of Hartlen Point established anything, it’s how wide the gulf remains between those determined to build a land-based warship testing site near Eastern Passage and those who want it moved anywhere else. For more than two and a half hours…