Canada's Wonderland

Canada's Wonderland is a 330-acre (130 ha) theme park located in Vaughan, Ontario, a suburb approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Toronto. Opened in 1981 by the Taft Broadcasting Company and The Great-West Life Assurance Company as the first major theme park in Canada, it remains the country's largest. The park was owned by Paramount Parks from 1993 to 2006 when it was known as Paramount Canada's Wonderland. Cedar Fair purchased the park in 2006 dropping Paramount from the title. Canada's Wonderland has been the most visited seasonal amusement park in North America for several consecutive years. In 2014, it was the second most visited park in the Cedar Fair chain, behind Knott's Berry Farm, with approximately 3.5 million visitors.

Canada's Wonderland is open daily from May to September, and then only on weekends through early November. The park features 16 roller coasters, tied with Cedar Point for the second most roller coasters in an amusement park behind Six Flags Magic Mountain. Canada's Wonderland also features a 20-acre (8.1 ha) water park called Splash Works, and during the fall season, a Halloween-themed event called Halloween Haunt.

Manchester International Festival

The Manchester International Festival is a biennial international arts festival, with a specific focus on original new work, held in the English city of Manchester. The festival is a biennial event, first taking place in June–July 2007, and subsequently recurring in the summers of 2009, 2011 and 2013. MIF 15 took place between 2–19 July 2015. The organisation is based in Blackfriars House, adjacent to Blackfriars Bridge

Pre-festival commissions

The Festival was promoted and initiated with three pre-festival commissions. The first of these took place in November 2005, when Gorillaz performed live at the Manchester Opera House. Recordings of these performances were later released as the Demon Days Live DVD. The second was The Schools Festival Song, a new piece by Ennio Morricone and Nicholas Royle sung by an 8,000-strong schools' choir, organised by Young Voices, which took place on 4 December 2006.

The third was an art installation, in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum, by Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, as a response to the 2003 Iraq war and as a tribute to British service personnel killed in that conflict. It was exhibited in the Great Hall of Manchester Central Library from 28 February to 15 July 2007.

New Order

New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980, currently consisting of founding members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, alongside Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman. The band was formed in 1980 by Sumner (vocals, guitars, keyboards and synthesisers), ex member Peter Hook (bass and vocals) and Morris (drums, electronic drums, keyboards and synthesizers) – the remaining members of post-punk group Joy Division, following the suicide of vocalist Ian Curtis – with the addition of Gilbert (keyboards, synthesizers and guitars).

By combining post-punk with an increasing influence from electronic dance music, New Order became one of the most critically acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. Though the band's early years were shadowed by the legacy and basic sound of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York City club scene increased their knowledge of dance music and helped them incorporate elements of that style into their work. The band's 1983 hit "Blue Monday", the best-selling 12-inch single of all time, is one example of how the band's sound became increasingly upbeat and electronic.

Festival

A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions, often marked as a local or national holiday, mela or eid. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.

Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups, contributing to group cohesiveness. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families.

International

International mostly means something (a company, language, or organization) involving more than a single country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries. For example, international law, which is applied by more than one country and usually everywhere on Earth, and international language which is a language spoken by residents of more than one country.

Origin of the word

The term international was coined by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in his Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation, which was printed for publication in 1780 and published in 1789. Bentham wrote: "The word international, it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to express, in a more significant way, the branch of law which goes commonly under the name of the law of nations. The word was adopted in French in 1801.Thomas Erskine Holland noted in his article on Bentham in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica that "Many of Bentham's phrases, such as 'international,' 'utilitarian,' 'codification,' are valuable additions to our language; but the majority of them, especially those of Greek derivation, have taken no root in it."