The BreakFest Blog
News about Ottawa Festivals and our Member festivals, special events and fairs.
Ottawa’s Oktoberfest Celebration Get Bigger Than Ever!
Oktoberfest Ottawa Sept 30, Oct 1 & 2 Richmond Fairgrounds
[Source: Oktoberfest Ottawa press release]
It may be early August but plans are already underway to fill the fields with food, froth, fun, frauliens, steins, lederhosen, dirndls, pretzels, sausage and more to make this year’s Oktoberfest Ottawa the biggest & best Oktoberfest celebration around.
Oktoberfest Ottawa will take place Friday September 30th (4p-11p); Saturday October 1st (11a-11p) and Sunday October 2nd (11a-6p) at the Richmond Fairground …just 10 minutes from Kanata
Ottawa’s Oktoberfest Celebration really has something for everyone!
BEER
What would Oktoberfest be without it? Plenty of choice to fill your stein this year…Local Ottawa brewer Kichesippi Beer Co will be on hand serving up their popular ‘Natural Blonde’ & ‘1855’ beers plus a new and exclusive traditional German style beer to be debuted in a limited batch at Oktoberfest Ottawa.
A Violent State Wins Best Film at Ottawa International Film Festival
[Source: OIFF press release]
Ottawa, CANADA – August 22, 2011 – The Ottawa International Film Festival is proud to announce that Adrian Langely’s A Violent State has received the award for Best Film.
“My hope for the Ottawa International Film Festival is that it becomes a champion for emerging filmmakers, like Adrian Langley, so they can continue to create great cinema. It’s a real pleasure to present this award to A Violent State,” said Nina Bains, executive producer, OIFF.
Ottawa-shot A Violent State is a crime drama about a man on the verge of leaving his life of crime only to have to return. Director and Writer Adrian Langely was in attendance when it had its World Premiere at OIFF to a sold-out crowd on opening night. A Violent State stars Rams Fax, Jessica Edwards and Adrian Langley. Richard Towns and Sean Parker of Parktown Productions, John Kambites of Kambites Media, and Sara Deline produced it.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to receive the Best Film Award from OIFF. Truly honoured to be chosen,” commented Richard Towns.
Savour Ottawa Harvest Table features guest author
Lynn Ogryzlo to sign copies of The Ontario Table
[Source: Ottawa Tourism press release]
OTTAWA, August 18, 2011—Award-winning author Lynn Ogryzlo will attend Savour Ottawa’s first ever public event, the Savour Ottawa Harvest Table, at the Parkdale Market on Sunday, August 28 at 12:00noon. Tickets to the event are $50 per person and include a three-course meal plus two samples of beer and/or wine (from local companies Kichesippi Beer Company and Domaine Perrault). Tickets are available online through www.savourottawa.ca (the direct link is www.savourottawa.eventbrite.com). See below for a list of participating farmers and chefs.
Lynn Ogryzlo, who harkens from the Niagara region, will be at the event with her new book, The Ontario Table, which celebrates the best food and wine from around the province. Ottawa plays prominently in the book with stories of Savour Ottawa members such as Rochon Farm, Acorn Creek Garden Farm, The Piggy Market, and O’Brien Farms. Grower stories introduce consumers to the people who grow our food.
The Ontario Table is both a culinary travel guide and cookbook with 125 stories of growers, 110 local food recipes, 100 Ontario wine pairings, 20 culinary travel destinations (including Ottawa), 57 provincial culinary maps, and countless happy mouthfuls.
Tents will be erected in the park for the Harvest Table event and guests will be served family-style at tables of 16. The Parkdale Market will be in full operation during the event, as will the Savour Ottawa Field House, a unique cooperative retail operation among 10 Savour Ottawa farmers that launched in May 2011, operating Thursdays through Sundays.
During the book signing, Ogryzlo will be issuing ‘The Ontario Table $10 Challenge.’ She notes, ”If every household in Ontario spends $10 of their weekly grocery budget on local food and wine, there would be a $2.4 billion influx into the province’s economy each year.”
Mick Armitage Band rocks and rolls on
Courtney Symons, Your OttawaRegion
Mick Armitage with flyers from every performance the band played in his garage.
Photo courtesy by Courtney Symons, YourOttawaRegion
The Mick Armitage Band is a band on the run.
They have to be to keep up with the number of tour dates booked into their already-packed calendar this year, which includes stops at the Richmond Fair on Sept. 16 and the Carp Fair on Sept. 25.
Mick Armitage, the namesake and promoter of the band, keeps organized file folders for each and every upcoming event, whatever it may be.
“We’ll play at a wedding, we’ll play at a honky-tonk, we’ll play at the Carp Fair or we’ll play at a 40th anniversary,” Armitage said. “That’s what you’ve got to do to survive in this business. You’ve got to play Hank Williams and the Rolling Stones and Garth Brooks and Cheap Trick.”
Read more on YourOttawaRegion website: Mick Armitage Band rocks and rolls on
Folk Festival more accessible this year
Janice Thiessen, EMC News
“(Our new location) gives you the opportunity to see a lot of these artists in an intimate setting.
“It also gives people a chance to see artists in the workshops, there’s a lot of interactive opportunities,” said artistic director and Folk Festival supervisor Mark Monahan.
“It’s really a gem of a site, a beautiful setting in the heart of the city.
“We’re very excited to have Hogs Back Park as the new home for the festival.”
The Ottawa Folklore Centre is one of the founding sponsors of the event and has been heavily involved with the preparations including setting up numerous interactive workshops.
“It’s really important to have their involvement and have local artists apart of the Folk Festival,” Monahan added.
The Folk Festival used to be held at Britannia Park but because of some limitations the festival was moved to Hog’s Back Park this year.
“The festival is not viable in its (older) location for a number of reasons, but mainly because of accessibility,” said Monahan.
Read more on the Ottawa Citizen website: Folk Festival more accessible this year
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.
SuperEx film creates sense of nostalgia
‘It was the biggest show in town at one time’
Robert Sibley, The Ottawa Citizen
For the first summer in more than a century — not counting the war years — the gates of SuperEx did not open this year, and for some it just doesn’t feel like August without the annual end-of-summer event.
“I’ve been around the Ex since I was four-year-old,” says 68-year-old David Presley, a past president of the Ex. “I’ve lived across from the Lansdowne all my life and I remember coming to the Ex as a child. The smells, the lights, the fireworks; it was wonderful. It’s like my whole has been around the Ex.”
Presley was among 350 people who turned out Thursday evening to enjoy a couple hours of nostalgia and reminiscence watching a documentary entitled Memories of the Ex: 122 Years at Lansdowne. The two-hour film took the audience all the way back to Ex’s origins as an agricultural fair in the 1880s and then forward into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when it was capable of attracting crowds of 800,000, and beyond.
Ottawa Fashion Week Tickets on Sale Soon Through Ottawa Festivals
Tickets for Ottawa Fashion Week’s (OFW) sixth season taking place at the Ottawa Convention Centre from September 29, 2011 to October 1, 2011 will be on sale tomorrow starting at 7:30 a.m. You can purchase tickets online through Ottawa Festivals by going to www. ottawafestivalsticketing.ca
OFW has become a platform for national and international designers and artists to showcase their work while uniting the community with the latest trends in art and design. It has also become a means for arts and fashion industry members to grow and gain opportunities. The overall philosphy has been to promote the arts such as photography, music ad film and allow for artistic expression.
Carrie Underwood brings her fans to their feet
Lambert blasts the show open
REVIEW
Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert
Capital Hoedown, LeBreton Flats Park, Friday, Aug. 12
OTTAWA — If Carrie Underwood ever tires of Nashville, Ottawa will welcome her with open arms. At least the 17,000-plus fans who greeted last nights headliner at Capital Hoedown would embrace her.
When the country superstar, who played Scotiabank Place just over a year ago, took the stage at LeBreton Flats Park, lawn chairs were abandoned and the folks who’d been sitting in the raised VIP sections were suddenly standing on their chairs, dancing in place to tunes like the big opener Cowboy Casanova and Wasted. (The fans were eventually chased off the chairs by a Hoedown representative.)
Underwood’s not a big woman, but her rafter-shaking voice easily dominates whatever venue hosts her. The former American Idol proved that again Saturday night with tunes like Some Hearts, a big sing-a-long favourite for her Ottawa fans.
She’s also a hard-working performer who uses body language superbly to connect with the audience in a song like All-American Girl.
A Chamberful of success
Healthy attendance, smooth operations marked this year’s festival
Richard Todd, The Ottawa Citizen
The 18th annual Ottawa Chamber Music Festival is history now, though such recent history that a box office and financial analysis will not be ready for some time. Still, anyone who has attended the Chamberfest regularly over the years will have noticed that the main venue, Dominion-Chalmers church, was full or close to it every evening.
What may have surprised some people was the attendance at St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts at 310 St. Patrick St in the ByWard Market, which was remarkably higher than in recent years. In the past some potential audience members have avoided this venue because it is in a part of town some regard as a little shady, parking can be difficult and there has been a perception that the best artists are at Dominion-Chalmers.
But this year there was a shuttle service between Dominion-Chalmers and St. Brigid’s. You could leave you car at D-C, catch all or part of the performance there, take the shuttle to the ByMarket venue and get a ride back, either at the end of the 8 p.m. concert or after the 10:30 cabaret events. “Clearly this was a breakthrough,” says Chamberfest’s director of Marketing and Communications, James Whittall.
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