The BreakFest Blog
News about Ottawa Festivals and our Member festivals, special events and fairs.
FEO 2012 Awards Submission Are Ready!
Get Your Applications In Early!
[Source: Festivals & Events Ontario press release]
The passion it takes to successfully organize and execute some of the best festivals and events in the world, takes more than great ideas and collaboration; it takes rolling up your sleeves, digging deep into your community for support, and rounding up volunteers to make it a success!
At our Beyond Borders 2012 FEO Annual Conference, we will acknowledge this through our Awards Program to highlight the best in industry practices and the hard work and commitment of those who make the festivals and events industry in Ontario such a success.
Each spring, the FEO Conference plays host to our extravagant gala evening where the FEO Awards are presented. The 2012 Conference will be held March 1 -3, 2012 at the Sheraton on the Falls Hotel, Niagara Falls with the Awards being presented during the FEO Hall of Fame dinner on Friday, March 2nd and at the FEO Awards Gala dinner on Saturday, March 3rd, 2011.
Art festivals boost local economy
While Ottawa residents reap the cultural benefits of art festivals such as the International Writers’ Festival and the International Animation Festival, art festivals boost the city’s economy, according to studies by the City of Ottawa.
From Sept. 21-25, animators and filmmakers could be found in the Chateau Laurier lobby. Janet Perleman, a filmmaker from Montreal, says she’s been to the festival since it started in 1976.
During the festival, Perleman stays at a hotel. This year, she was at downtown Ottawa’s Novotel.
In fact, hotels are one of the biggest festival sponsors in Ottawa.
Robin Grant, Centretown News
Kimberly Wilson, Novotel sales and marketing director, says sponsoring festivals shows support for the city and helps business.
“The city needs support because it is competing with other cultural hubs like Toronto and Montreal.”
Arc Hotel sponsors the writers’ festival among other art festivals.
“Being as we are an artistic design hotel, these festivals make sense to us,” says Dean Lake, director of sales at the Arc.
Read more on the Centretown News website: Art festivals boost local economy
Culture Days kicks off a cross-Canada arts celebration
All that was needed for this weekend’s massive eruption of arts across Canada was a green light. And it’s called Culture Days.
The national open-house arts festival includes everything from putting yourself into famous movies (by way of green-screen technology) at Toronto’s Bell Lightbox to live-band karaoke at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. From improv workshops in Vancouver, even to caribou-hair tufting, a traditional native art form, in Flin Flon, Man.
More than 5,500 public art and cultural offerings, up from around 4,400 for Culture Days’ debut last year, will take place Friday to Sunday across the country. And all-night events, such as Nuit Blanche in Toronto and Winnipeg, will turn downtowns into street-level art parties.
So what exactly is this overarching Culture Days banner? “We felt that we needed to find a way of celebrating the role of the arts in society,” said Antoni Cimolino, general director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and chair of Culture Days’ national steering committee.
Read more on the The Globe and Mail website: Culture Days kicks off a cross-Canada arts celebration
Ottawa could be ‘one of the great conference centres of the world’
The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Ottawa should shape its destiny as a great city and capital by becoming the centrepiece of international gatherings where the world comes to debate, argue, learn and find solutions to global problems, former UN ambassador Stephen Lewis said Tuesday.
Speaking on the first day of the National Capital Commission’s national conversation on a new plan for the capital, Lewis said some of the world’s iconic cities like New York, Barcelona and Berlin, have fashioned their own unique place in the world, and Ottawa can do the same. But he said Ottawa can find its own greatness not by copying others, but by carving its own niche by using its unique attributes as the heart of Canadian politics and democracy.
“One of the ways to enhance Ottawa-Gatineau is to make it one of the great conference centres of the world … a centrepiece of international gatherings,” Lewis told about 300 people at the Ottawa Convention Centre.
Cultural Secrets of Ottawa
CBC News
CBC Television presents Cultural Secrets of Ottawa, presented by Julie Nesrallah, the mezzo-soprano singing sensation and host of Tempo on CBC Radio 2.
We asked famous citizens from the Ottawa-Gatineau area to reveal their special, unusual, and maybe the not-so-well-known cultural finds of our city.
Which guest has the best cultural secret? Find out the favourite places and activities, the food and fun, the dance and music, the monuments and sculptures.
Guests include, Elizabeth Hay, Pierre Brault, Richard Robinson, Spartacat, Cyril Leeder, Adrian Harewood, Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, Amanda Putz, Kellylee Evans, Lucky Ron, Lynn Miles, Andrea McCrady, Mayor Jim Watson, Chief Atleo, Oni the Haitian Sensation, Martha Chaves, Jessica Holmes and Keshia Chante.
Read more on the CBC News website: Cultural Secrets of Ottawa
Finalists for the 2011 Stars of the City Recognition Evening!
[Source: Ottawa Tourism press release]
Between September 1st, 2010 and August 31st 2011, 1052 nominations were submitted to Ottawa Tourism, citing real-life examples of excellence in customer service. From these nominations finalists have been chosen in several categories. The complete list of finalists is attached and can also be found at http://www.starsofthecity.ca/recognition.htm or http://www.starsofthecity.ca/recognition_f.htm
Join the tourism industry in celebrating all the nominees, finalists and award winners at this year’s Recognition Evening on Wednesday, October 26th at Algonquin College.
STARS RECOGNITION EVENING TICKETS will go on sale early next week.
Thank you to all of the front-line staff for making sure that Ottawa and Canada’s Capital Region shines as a destination.
Plans for new theatre set the stage for annual lineup
Jennifer McIntosh, Your Ottawa Region.com
The grand opening of the Centrepointe Studio Theatre was a vision 25 years in the making according to artistic director for the City of Ottawa theatres, Charles McFarland.
“It’s great to be here tonight celebrating the vision of Barbara Feldman, the founding manager of Centrepointe Theatre,” he said.
The expansion of the theatre – used by international stars and local theatre groups – has been in the works since the 1990s and was set to go ahead in 2002, but for amalgamation and lack of funding.
The theatre has been in use since a May preview show of Hamlet by the Ottawa Shakespeare Company, but officially kicked things off with a performances by Ottawa band the Peptides.
Read more on the Your Ottawa Region.com website: Plans for new theatre set the stage for annual lineup
This harvest season try choosing local
Mayor Jim Watson and Councillor Maria McRae, Chair of the Environment Committee, together with Doug Thompson, Chair of the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee and Katherine Hobbs, Kitchissippi Ward, issued a delicious challenge to residents today: they officially launched the “$10 Local Food Challenge”, making a case for trying local food this harvest season. The launch took place at the “Harvest Table” – a three-course lunch hosted by Savour Ottawa, showcasing in-season and locally sourced ingredients, prepared on-site at the Parkdale Market.
“When it comes to food, there is no place like home,” said Mayor Watson. “Especially in Ottawa at this time of the year, when there is such a variety and abundance of locally-grown fruits and vegetables. Fresh picked, nutrition-packed, and mouth-watering.”
Read more on the OttawaStart website: This harvest season try choosing local
City ‘missing’ out on staycation market
Elizabeth Howell, Ottawa Business Journal
Operators targeting local residents lack assistance from tourism officials
A local tour boat operator says the city’s tourism marketing agency is missing out on an opportunity to tap into the growing “staycation” market. Kurt Huck, a co-owner of Capital Cruises, says area residents represent a increasing percentage of his four-year-old business, which takes passengers on tours of the Ottawa River.
Fuelled by rising gas prices and the high Canadian dollar, several tourism operators and hoteliers say they are observing more local residents choosing to spend their vacation in Ottawa, and are adjusting their marketing efforts as a result.
But with a focus on selling packaged tours that include hotel rooms, Ottawa Tourism is not oriented to promote individual attractions, says Mr. Huck.
“Their mandate … is (hotel) room nights. Unfortunately, they’re missing the drive-in people and the regional people,” he says.
Read more on the Ottawa Business Journal website: City ‘missing’ out on staycation market
Clearance for Cross-Border Rail Service to Fuel Economic Growth and the Visitor Economy
[Source: Tourism Industry Association of Canada press release]
Thursday, August 18, 2011 – Continued border clearance services for a second Amtrak train between Seattle and Vancouver will help to provide millions of dollars to Canada’s economy, said the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC).
“We thank Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and the Canadian Border Service Agency for recognizing the importance of this cross-border rail service, and finding the resources to help keep this train running,” said David Goldstein, President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. “Even in a time of financial constraint, this service is a wise investment in Canada’s travel and tourism sector, and will help to spur economic growth and job creation.”
The second Amtrak daily train began as a pilot project two years ago, providing an additional travel option for potential visitors to Canada. The train brought more than 70,000 passengers to British Columbia in 2010 – 71% of whom were visitors to Canada. Those visitors provided more than $20 million in additional passenger spending to the British Columbian economy.
This investment is in line with the both the Federal Government’s commitment to the Federal Tourism Strategy and the Beyond the Border initiative, which seek to facilitate economic growth in the travel and tourism sector by increasing access to Canada, and facilitating the movement of travelers across our border.
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