IWC New Leaves Festival: Open Mic ft. Rawle James

Flip your leaf! 

The New Leaves Festival of Arts and Culture returns to venues across Kelowna from March 6-8, 2025. New Leaves is an annual, three-day arts festival put on by Kelowna non-profit arts organization Inspired Word Cafe, featuring artists from the Okanagan and across Canada, as well as programming in English, French, and other languages. Taking the idiom “turning over a new leaf” New Leaves focuses on an annually changing theme important to the Okanagan community. Last year, responding to a local rise in anti-LGBTQ2SIA+ sentiment in the Okanagan and beyond, the 2024 New Leaves theme was “Queer Art as Resistance.” In 2025, the 2nd annual New Leaves Festival theme is “Your Backyard.” While no literal backyards will feature, we are choosing to celebrate the vibrant literary and performance art right here in Kelowna, through both a focus on local artists and a celebration of Inspired Word Cafe’s 15th Season as a fulcrum of the arts scene. See you leaves on the flipside!

To kick off the festival, IWC is going to do what we do best: a run-of-the-mill, ordinary Open Mic. But this is no ordinary Open Mic! We will also feature IWC Collective Members past and present, with a headlining performance from IWC co-founder Rawle James in his triumphant return to the Okanagan. Get there early as this event will no doubt fill up fast with the love that this community has for Rawle and the popularity of IWC’s Open Mics.

Doors and Open Mic sign-up open at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $10–20 (sliding scale) and can only be purchased at the door. The event is all ages.