This year's festival will take place May 6–12, 2024.

From Monday to Friday, there will be a nightly lecture or panel. They will all happen over Zoom at 8pm, and they will all be recorded so you can watch them whenever you like.

Then on the weekend, we'll head out into the city for a few very strange walking tours.

You can buy a ticket for the whole festival, or individual events.

Here's the schedule so far!



MONDAY MAY 6




Toronto's past is filled with chilling crimes that have a lot to teach us about the history of the place we call home. On the festival's opening night, we'll dive into some of those grisly cases with three authors who've written about some of the strangest and most shocking murders in our city's history.

Nate Hendley is the Toronto-based author of several history books, including The Beatle Bandit: A Serial Bank Robber's Deadly Heist, a Cross-Country Manhunt, and the Insanity Plea that Shook the Nation and The Boy on the Bicycle: A Forgotten Case of Wrongful Conviction in Toronto.

Carolyn Whitzman is a writer, researcher and Invited Professor at the University of Ottawa. Her most recent book is Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto.

Adam Selzer is a tour guide and historian in Chicago and New York as well as the author of more than twenty books, including H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil.

— 8pm on Zoom —
(Eastern time)




FRIDAY MAY 10




Toronto's dead haven't always been able to rest in peace. There was a time when our city was plagued by graverobbers. As local medical schools developed a ravenous appetite for fresh bodies, grisly scenes played out under the cover of darkness. Victorian Torontonians were left horrified by reports of empty coffins and missing corpses.

The talk will be presented by Adam Bunch, author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, the host of the Canadiana documentary series, and the creator of the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History.

— 8pm on Zoom —




SATURDAY MAY 11




There are strange secrets hidden among the gravestones of the Necropolis. We'll spend the Saturday afternoon of the festival roaming among them with one of the city's most riveting tour guides. We'll dig up unexpected tales about the dead in a fascinating walk led by Chantal Morris, creator of the wildly popular Toronto Cemetery Tours.

— 1pm —




SUNDAY MAY 12




The festival's final day will be Mother's Day. So what better time to take a tour filled with some strange stories about moms from the history of Toronto. We'll explore everything from William Lyon Mackenzie's elderly mother facing down soldiers during his infamous rebellion, to Mary Pickford's mom raising a family filled with scandalous child stars.

The tour will be led by Adam Bunch, author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, the host of the Canadiana documentary series, and the creator of the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History.

— 1pm —



Zoom links and all other details will be sent to ticket holders shortly before the festival begins. See you then!