Festival fatigue? From May to September, there’s a festival every weekend. Is Ottawa in danger of …
Bruce Ward, The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa’s festival season is exhilarating and exhausting, but it also poses an existential dilemma: How do you wring every drop of fun from the festivals when so much is on offer? Let’s be optimistic and say our summer is about four months long — call it 16 weekends.
During those 16 weekends, Ottawans can choose from hundreds of events tied to smaller festivals and cultural celebrations, not counting the Tulip Festival and Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill. That’s in addition to the big four music shows — Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Ottawa International Chamber Music Fest, and the Ottawa Folk Festival.
And what about the possibility of festival fatigue? Will residents and visitors get turned off when confronted with Ottawa’s overload of shows and events? “Other than jokingly — ‘Oh, there’s too much to do, how do you choose?’ — I haven’t really heard any serious criticism of there being too many festivals,” says Jantine Van Kregten, director of communications at Ottawa Tourism.
“I find June, though, there really is a lot. It’s just one thing after another. Every weekend there’s not just one or two things, there’s multiple things to choose from.” Festivals bring a big payday to Canadian cities, including Ottawa. At the 2009 Bluesfest, the combined overall attendance was 395,044 with visitor expenditures of more than $65 million.
Full article on the Ottawa Citizen website: Festival fatigue?
Tags: Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, festival season, Ottawa events, Ottawa Festivals, Ottawa Folk Festival, Ottawa International Chamber Music Fest, Ottawa Summer, Ottawa Tourism, TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, Things to do in Ottawa
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