Festival Updates and News
News about Ottawa Festivals and our Member festivals, special events and fairs.
Lofty goal for dragon boat fest
By Darren Brown , Ottawa Sun
Photo by Darren Brown
The Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation fundraising season got off with a roar as they announced an ambitious goal of $500,000 for 2012.
Up from $350,000 from the previous year, “it was quite lofty for sure,” says executive director, John Brooman.
“(We are) really trying to take the 20% of the paddlers who are now raising the money and bring that up to 40, 50%. We do have 5,000 paddlers who attend the event so if we could double the number of people who are actually raising money then we should be go to go to get beyond the ($500,000).”
Read more: Lofty goal for dragon boat fest
FESTIVALS & EVENTS ONTARIO 2012 AWARD RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED IN NIAGARA FALLS, ONTARIO
Festivals and Events Ontario (FEO) is proud to announce the winners of the Top 100 Festivals and Events in Ontario, Achievement Awards, Service Excellence Awards, Hall of Fame and Volunteer of the Year Awards at Beyond Borders – FEO’s Annual Conference.
- 2012 Top 100 Festivals and Events in Ontario
- 2012 FEO Achievement Awards Winners
- 2012 FEO Service Excellence Award Winners
- 2012 Hall of Fame Inductees and 2012 FEO Volunteer of the Year
For more information contact:
Nicole Hamilton, Communications and Membership Services Coordinator
Festivals & Events Ontario
5 Graham Street, Suite 301
Woodstock, Ontario, N4S 6J5
T: 519-537-2226
F: 519-537-7226
E: nicole@festivalsandeventsontario.ca
88 x 2 (Charlap-Rosnes piano duo booked for Ottawa Jazz Festival)
By Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Photo by Peter Hum
More good news for Ottawa’s fans of jazz piano: the husband-and-wife duo of Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes is booked to play the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, according to Rosnes’ website.
The impeccable exemplars of modern mainstream jazz piano are to play June 29 in the NAC Studio.
Read more: 88 x 2 (Charlap-Rosnes piano duo booked for Ottawa Jazz Festival)
Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation Launches 2102 Fundraising Season
Epoch Times Staff
The Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival launched its 2012 fundraising season on March 6.
Among the speakers at the launch event was Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley, Honorary Chair of the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation.
“This is the largest dragon boat festival in North America and to date it has raised over $2.4 million which is invested right back here within our community,” said Councillor Hubley
Noting the festival’s support of seven local charities, Councillor Hubley highlighted the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and its mental health walk-in clinic as he spoke of the tragic loss of his 15-year-old son, Jamie, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last October.
Read more: Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation Launches 2102 Fundraising Season
Ottawa Storytellers Present – The Shortest Road Home
[Source: Ottawa StoryTellers press release]
National Arts Centre, 4th Stage
March 15, 7:30 p.m.
$20 NAC box office or ticketmaster.ca
The Shortest Road Home, Stories from Ireland with Mike Burns
With the stories he heard as a child and has polished over decades of telling, Mike Burns will bring you to the places that still haunt him. It is a land of fogs and rugged cliffs, farming and fishing, evenings warmed by whiskey and turf and stories. You will know the glimmer of the embers in the hearth, and the old stories that have lived in the place names and in the minds and hearts of the people of the wild western coast of Ireland – the next parish to America, as it is sometimes called. These are stories of love, lust, and lies; bright blue spears and little folk; magic and mayhem; wise men and cruel kings; havoc and hunting; laughter and tears. Read more
Canadian Tulip Festival announces change of venue to community business locations, new Tulip Legacy initiatives
The Canadian Tulip Festival, which celebrates its 60th Edition this Spring from May 4th – 21st, today updated its stakeholders and supporters on plans to facilitate long-term sustainability, enlarge program offerings for the visiting public and expand community engagement.
Change to community venues
The Festival announced that future programming and pageantry will be distributed throughout community locations instead of being concentrated at Major’s Hill Park, and will be done in collaboration with Business Improvement Area (“BIA”) organizations wherever possible.
“When the Board of Trade created the Festival in 1953 the idea was to animate the Capital in a way that created more economic value for local business,” said David E. Luxton, volunteer Chair and financial patron of the Canadian Tulip Festival. “I’ve been pleased to support the Tulip Festival for this reason, having seen independent studies showing that it generates tens of millions of dollars in economic value to the local economy every year. It makes sense therefore to see the Festival migrate to an operating model that creates even more value for local business by driving visitor traffic to their locations with programming attractions.”
Tulip Festival pulls up roots and leaves Major’s Hill Park
Tony Lofaro, The Ottawa Citizen
After 59 years, the Canadian Tulip Festival is leaving the NCC’s parks.
For the 60th anniversary festival, officials say their programming this spring will be staged at community sites around the city. The festival has had a long-standing partnership with the National Capital Commission and has used Major’s Hill Park and Commissioner’s Park, near Dow’s Lake, in the past.
Read more: Tulip Festival pulls up roots and leaves Major’s Hill Park
2012 Ottawa Jazz Festival lineup: what’s on
The 2012 Ottawa Jazz Festival lineup will be announced on April 11, 2012
This year, the Ottawa Jazz Festival will run from June 21 to July 1, 2012 in downtown Ottawa, Canada. The main concerts will be held in Confederation Park, with smaller concerts in the National Arts Centre (NAC), at the Rideau Centre, and other downtown venues.
The Festival has pre-announced a number of concerts.
- Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band – Friday, June 22, 8:30 p.m.
- Chris Botti and the National Arts Centre Orchestra – Friday, June 29, 8 p.m.
- Dave Holland and Kenny Barron Duo – Friday, June 22, 7 p.m.
- Esperanza Spalding Radio Music Society – Wednesday, June 27, 8 p.m.
- Ninety Miles (with Stefon Harris, David Sanchez and Nicholas Payton) – Friday, June 22, 7:30 p.m.
- Prism (Dave Holland, Kevin Eubanks, Craig Taborn and Eric Harland) – Sunday, June 24, 8:30 p.m.
- Thimar (Anouar Brahem, John Surman and Dave Holland) – Saturday, June 23, 7:30 p.m.
Read more: 2012 Ottawa Jazz Festival lineup: what’s on
Winterlude 2012 one of best attended ever
The Ottawa Citizen
Photograph by: Pat McGrath , Ottawa Citizen
Despite the mild weather that closed the Rideau Canal, the National Capital Commission says that Winterlude 2012 was one of the best attended to date.
Preliminary attendance numbers from a Winterlude research study indicate that 695,000 individuals attended the 2012 event. Of this, 62 per cent were area residents and 38 per cent were visitors from out-of-town. Final survey results will be available later this month.
Original Story: Winterlude 2012 one of best attended ever
Jazz festivals’ rising costs spark program changes
James Hale, CBC Radio3
As they look toward early summer and the launch of another season, Canada’s major jazz festivals find themselves squeezed between rising costs and funding uncertainty. But, rather than singing the blues, they are finding new ways to cope.
“The same artists who charged $2,500 when I started in 1997 are now demanding $25,000,” says Catherine O’Grady, executive producer of the Ottawa International Jazz Festival and head of Jazz Festivals Canada, which represents 18 of country’s festivals. “It’s part of an artificial model we have to reconcile. Part of it is that those artists deserved to be making more than $2,500. The other part is that we’ve been subsidizing low ticket prices, and that can’t continue.”
In Ottawa and at numerous other jazz festivals throughout North America, promoters have used the strategy of opening their stages to different musical genres, with mixed results.
Read the full post at Radio3: Jazz festivals’ rising costs spark program changes
- 3 May:
- 4 May:
- 11 May:
- 24 May:
- 30 May:
- 1 June:
- 2 June:
- 5 June:
- 7 June:
