What the Major Festivals Fund Reveals About Ottawa’s Potential

A recent Ottawa Citizen article highlighted a welcome development: a $1-million fund, delivered by Ottawa Tourism, supporting eight of Ottawa’s largest festivals.

For those events, the impact is immediate. Organizers are calling it a “life-saver,” helping offset rising costs and enabling future planning.

This is good news—and long overdue.

The new Major Festivals Fund is also a powerful example of what can happen when Ottawa aligns. The Ottawa Festival Network identified the funding gap and brought the sector together to make the case. The City responded with meaningful engagement, and Ottawa Tourism moved quickly to design and deliver a program in time for this season.

The Ottawa Festival Network's Festival Summit held at City Hall in November 2025 where the new Major Festivals Fund was announced.

It’s a clear signal of what’s possible when the City, Ottawa Tourism, and the festival sector work in step. We are still learning along the way but this pilot program shows us what is possible. 

More importantly, it reflects a shared understanding: festivals are not just cultural programming. They are infrastructure. Economic drivers. They fill hotels, animate public spaces, and give people a reason to choose Ottawa over another destination.

That alignment creates real momentum.

This new fund rightly focuses on festivals that drive visitation, overnight stays, and economic impact. It’s encouraging to see those festivals generating tourism revenue now able to access a portion of it.

And it opens the door to what comes next.

Tourism is not built on attraction alone. It is built on experiences.

In today’s experience economy, people don’t just travel to places—they travel for what they can feel, do, and be part of when they get there.

Festivals deliver exactly that.

They are immersive, participatory, and time-bound. They create urgency. They transform public space into shared experience. And they generate the kind of emotional connection that turns a first-time visitor into a repeat guest—and a resident into an ambassador.

With the Major Festivals Fund, Ottawa has taken an important step in that direction.

And now there is an opportunity to build on it—together.

Beyond the eight major festivals, more than 150 others contribute to the city’s vibrancy. They animate neighbourhoods, reflect Ottawa’s diversity, and sustain energy across seasons.

They may not all deliver the same immediate tourism metrics. But collectively, they create the environment that visitors are drawn to—and return for.

They are the foundation of Ottawa’s experience economy.

And they play a critical role in engaging residents.

A successful tourism strategy doesn’t only attract visitors—it activates the city itself. When residents are excited about their city, they become its most powerful ambassadors, extending the reach of every tourism dollar invested. 

This is where continued partnership matters most.

By working together to evolve municipal accommodations tax (MAT) reinvestment—building on the success of the Major Festivals Fund—the city, OFN and Ottawa Tourism have an opportunity to strengthen the full festival ecosystem that drives visitation, extends stays, fuels long-term growth and maybe mostly importantly…brings our city to life in a way that we have yet to experience. 

The Major Festivals Fund shows us what’s possible.

And we can build on it—together.