Take part · communities
Your pavilion.Your counter.
You cook. You perform. You keep every dollar the counter takes. A community needs a year to gather a crew and a kitchen, and the year starts now.
September 2027 · exact dates to be confirmed · subject to permits
The economics, first.
A community pavilion pays nothing to stand on the field and hands over nothing it earns. That is the whole deal.
of pavilion takings stay with the pavilion
A share of the counter was costed at 20% and dropped: it would have netted the festival about $600 a year and taken a third of a community's reason to come.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026
Everything a board needs.
Four pages, written to be read at a committee meeting before anybody votes.
Who can run one.
A local non-profit
Incorporated as a non-profit in Ontario, with a majority of its board living in the Ottawa region.
Not a government
Diplomatic and consular missions, government agencies and political organisations do not operate pavilions. A mission can support one as a programme partner.
Chosen by procedure
Expression of interest, office screening, a risk review, an interview with the programming committee, then signing. Nobody buys a place and no fee keeps anybody off the field.
Rotation from season one
A pavilion can sit a year out and come back. Communities left out of the first edition are first in the queue for the next.
A first hello.
Three fields. It puts your organisation on the list and starts a conversation; the full application can come later.
Questions a board asks.
What does the weekend cost us?
No fee. Your costs are your own food, your crew's time, a commercial kitchen if you rent one, and your certificate of insurance. The tent, tables, power, fencing and safety are the festival's.
Will there be a fee later?
A share of the counter comes back to the table only alongside paid entry, and the first edition is free at the gate.
We have never done food at an outdoor event.
Say so on the form. The office works through the kitchen question with every community, and it starts early because it takes the longest.
The festival moved to September. Does anything change for us?
Only the weekend. The terms, the fee and the counter stay exactly as written here.