Ottawa · free entry · first edition
Every culture.One capital.
Capital Cultures is a free two-day multicultural festival planned for September 2027 in Ottawa, Ontario, where each community runs its own pavilion and keeps what its counter takes. The exact dates and the site wait on permits from the City of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission.
Pick your door.
A community needs a year to build a pavilion, so the applications are open now, a full season ahead of the September weekend.
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Communities
Run a pavilion. Your kitchen, your stage, every dollar over your counter.
Host a pavilion -
Vendors
Food, craft and trade on the field, on published terms.
Apply to trade -
Volunteers
Gates, kitchens, information, the passport table. Training comes first.
Sign up -
Partners
Sponsors, embassies, funders and the press. The budget season is autumn.
Partner with us
The counter is yours.
A community pavilion pays nothing to stand on the field and hands over nothing it earns. That decision is written down before anybody has said yes.
of pavilion takings stay with the pavilion
Food, drinks, souvenirs: every dollar over your counter is yours, both days. The festival earns from the vendors it invites, from grants and from sponsors.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026
What stays the same.
The first edition moves from 7–8 August 2027 to a weekend in September 2027. The rest of the plan stands.
Free at the gate
Both days, for everybody. The passport is a free souvenir and opens nothing.
Two days on one site
A Saturday and a Sunday in September 2027, in Ottawa. The weekend and the site are set with the permits.
The pavilions belong to the communities
Each community runs its own pavilion and keeps what its counter takes. Embassies stand beside a pavilion as partners, never as its operator.
Nothing is booked before the permits
Our plan is a weekend in September 2027 in Ottawa. The exact dates and the site are set with the event permits from the City of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission, and nothing is booked until both say yes.
The cultures of this city.
Articles on the communities that already cook, dance and teach in Ottawa, written from the census and open to correction by the communities themselves.
Lebanese Ottawa
Fourth birthplace on the city's immigrant list. Census 2021.Filipino Ottawa
Fourth among the city's newest arrivals. Census 2021.Ukrainian Ottawa
A century-deep diaspora and a newer wave.
- Indian Ottawa
- Chinese Ottawa
- Italian Ottawa
- Filipino Ottawa
- Spanish Ottawa
- Lebanese Ottawa
- Ukrainian Ottawa
- Vietnamese Ottawa
- Portuguese Ottawa
- Greek Ottawa
- Polish Ottawa
- German Ottawa
- Irish Ottawa
- Mexican Ottawa
- Brazilian Ottawa
- Japanese Ottawa
- Korean Ottawa
- Colombian Ottawa
- Peruvian Ottawa
- Moroccan Ottawa
- Turkish Ottawa
- Iranian Ottawa
- Nigerian Ottawa
- Somali Ottawa
- Ethiopian Ottawa
- Haitian Ottawa
- Jamaican Ottawa
- Syrian Ottawa
Communities that already cook in this city · no community has been asked yet and no pavilion is confirmed