Collaborations
The Beaches Jazz Festival is trying something new for its 38th year
A community-supported tipping channel, deployed with Toronto's Tiplor, gives fans a direct way to help keep the free festival free.
Photo courtesy Beaches International Jazz Festival
By The Tiplor team · July 6, 2026
Free for thirty-eight summers — and looking for a new way to stay that way.
Facing tightening arts funding, the Beaches International Jazz Festival is trying something new for its 38th year: scan-to-tip QR signs across its venues, deployed with local platform Tiplor — a community-supported tipping channel that lets fans contribute directly to the festival.
The festival, which runs July 3–26, has been free for 38 summers — the Sounds of Leslieville & Riverside at Jimmie Simpson Park, the mainstage nights at Woodbine Park, and StreetFest up and down Queen Street East. Never once has it cost a thing to stop and listen.
It's also facing the same pressures every free cultural event in Ontario is dealing with — provincial arts funding tightening, and corporate sponsorship priorities shifting. Rather than raise prices or scale back programming, BIJF is trying a community-first approach: give the audience a simple, direct way to chip in.
Co-branded Love It Live™ signs are being placed across the festival's main venues — Queen East StreetFest, Jimmie Simpson Park, and the mainstage at Woodbine Park. Each carries a Tiplor QR code that lets fans contribute in seconds using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or any credit or debit card. Contributions go directly to the festival, supporting BIJF's programming and its 38-year commitment to keeping the music free for the community.
The festival has been free for thirty-eight summers, and we want it to stay that way. Public funding didn't come through the way we'd hoped this year, but the community has only grown. Tiplor gives people who love the music a simple way to help keep it going. It's a natural extension of what BIJF has always been about.
How this collaboration came together
We're honoured BIJF said yes. We approached the festival earlier this year with an idea — that fans who love live music might want a simpler way to help keep it going — and Lido and his team were open to trying it. That's how most collaborations happen at Tiplor: we go to the rooms and events we already care about, propose something small, and see if it fits.
Beaches Jazz is the soundtrack of summer in the east end — for thirty-eight years. The idea that one tightened funding cycle could put a free festival of that scale at risk didn't sit right with us. We wanted to make supporting it as easy as appreciating it. That's what this is.
How the tipping channel works
For fans, it's as simple as scanning any of the QR signs, choosing an amount, and tapping their phone. No app, no signup, no account. Contributions flow to the festival directly.
The activation includes co-branded signs across BIJF's main venues, real-time digital contribution via QR scan, per-location tracking for festival analytics, and a permanent URL at tiplor.com/@beachesjazz that BIJF can use beyond the festival window.
About the Beaches International Jazz Festival
BIJF is one of Canada's largest free outdoor festivals, drawing hundreds of thousands of attendees over its month-long July run in Toronto's east end. Founded in 1989, the festival showcases jazz, blues, funk, world music, and beyond, across multiple stages and a 2-kilometre stretch of Queen Street East known as StreetFest. BIJF is a community non-profit with a long-standing tradition of supporting local causes, including ongoing partnerships with Michael Garron Hospital across its festival programming. Full 2026 schedule at beachesjazz.com.
About Tiplor
Tiplor is a Toronto-based digital tipping platform built specifically for live music. Artists, venues, hosts, and festivals get a one-tap way to receive contributions from fans via QR code, processed through Stripe. Built in the Beaches, Tiplor supports 150+ artists with 1,000+ QR scans to date, used at gigs across 5 countries. Learn more →
If you're heading to the festival this month, look for the Love It Live™ QR signs at StreetFest, Jimmie Simpson Park, or Woodbine Park. Scan, tap, done.
Give what a ticket would've cost — and help keep the music free for another 38 summers.
— The Tiplor team