GEDfest Past, Present, & Future - Future

Fifty-eight days out from GEDfest 2026, more than $750,000 already written into cheques, and a first million sitting within reach this October.

That is where this one opens, and then the panel spends the rest of the episode refusing to look backwards. GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, a community celebration of the life and legacy of Gord Downie and the music of The Tragically Hip, and the people running it are not interested in what it has been. They want to talk about what it becomes. Twelve chapters in 2026, the first of them outside Canada, and a board that sat down five years ago and wrote out what this thing stands for before it got big enough to lose the plot.

Keith Dyck's model for the whole enterprise is Terry Fox. Same idea, different hero, different setting - a rock show instead of a run. He is clear-eyed about the gap, too. The Terry Fox Run has raised something north of $850 million since it started. GEDfest is about to cross its first million. He would like the first one under the belt before anybody gets excited.

WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE

• Keith drove a rental car from Ottawa to Buffalo to Toronto this spring, and the thing that happened at a Buffalo gas station is the reason he now believes this can go anywhere.

• Buddy Herold went to his first GEDfest to carry amps and set up the water station. What he got asked to do instead is a cautionary tale about volunteering.

• Ian McDonald had a venue, a band, and a charity locked for Ottawa inside about 48 hours, and every single piece of it came from a phone call to somebody he already knew. Including the hockey coach.

• Sarah J. on why Buffalo was the only sensible place for the first American chapter, and what "the city of good neighbours" means when it comes to a fundraiser.

• Jeff Davison on why the rubber chicken dinner is losing, and what an event like this does that a gala cannot.

• Two men in Elks gear at the Labour Day Classic in Calgary who turned out not to live in Edmonton, or anywhere near it. Buddy has issued them a challenge and they have not delivered yet.

• The myth that The Tragically Hip were a Canada-only band, and the tribute act in the Netherlands quietly making the case against it.

• Buddy's plan involving a Blue Jays jersey with all thirty MLB parks on the back, and what he wants to put there instead.

• Keith's two current songs, both of them going into this year's set list, one of them by request from a corporate sponsor.

• Penny Gord. That is all anyone is getting here.

THE PANEL

• Keith Dyck, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Currently living inside 'Opiated' and 'Cordelia', because both are being added to the set. Would like it on the record that the first million is the hard one.

• Buddy Herold, director of sales and fundraising for GEDfest, from Calgary by way of Toronto. Five years running in Calgary, plus Regina and Winnipeg last year, and Toronto this year. Went with 'Ahead by a Century', which was the last song the band ever played live.

• Ian McDonald, Ottawa chapter lead, calling in from Vegas at 41 degrees. Came to this through his friend and colleague Ian Martin, had never run an event like it, and is now watching people he has not heard from in years buy tickets.

• Jeff Davison, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Centre, from Calgary. One in six Alberta men will get prostate cancer. His kids are now listening to The Hip in the truck, which he considers the win. Sings along to 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car' and admits it may be the only one he can manage.

• Sara Jachimiak of DATC Media, Buffalo chapter lead, from Buffalo, New York. All-time favourite is 'All Tore Up', currently deep into 'Let's Stay Engaged'. She is choosing Buffalo's charity herself, and she talks openly and without drama about the eight months of her own breast cancer treatment that shaped the choice.

GEDFEST 2026

GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, and in its ninth year it runs in twelve chapters across Canada and, for the first time, in the United States. Every chapter picks a cause in its own community and raises money for it. Find your city at gedfest.ca. jD runs the Toronto chapter, playing the Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday, October 17, with Grace, 2 on stage, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets and details at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ.

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