Capital Cultures
Ottawa · Canada Get the lettersThe letters FR

About · contact

Six addresses. One small team. A real reply.

Pick the subject that fits, write in your own words, and a person answers you. Everything about this festival is still being decided, so a question sent today changes what gets built.

Our plan for 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits

Write to the address that fits.

All six land with the same team. The one you pick decides who opens it first and how fast it moves.

Mail · open now · every address is @capitalcultures.com

Six subjects · one inbox behind them · September 2026

An information booth under a saffron-draped canopy at dusk with a corded telephone, stacks of leaflets and a folded plan on the counter, the crowd and blurred lights of the festival behind.
An information counter at dusk — a telephone, leaflets, a folded plan

What comes back, and when.

This is a commitment we are making to you, written down so you can hold us to it. Every message gets a human answer.

Our answering standard · reviewed when the team grows

Answering standard · from today to the first edition
SubjectWhat comes backWithin
CommunitiesA reply from the organiser, and a visit to your hall if you want one10 working days
Vendors and tradersA reply, and your name on the list that gets the application form first10 working days
VolunteersConfirmation that you are on the list, with the roles you marked10 working days
Partners and sponsorsA reply from the organiser and a meeting offer10 working days
PressA reply with sources; a deadline in the subject line jumps the queue10 working days
Everything elseA reply, or a straight answer that we do not know yet10 working days

Silence past ten working days means something broke on our side. Send it again to hello@capitalcultures.com, put the word resend in the subject, and it gets picked up by hand.

Everybody answering this mail is doing it around another job. Nobody draws a salary from Capital Cultures today; a paid core sits in the plan for the festival year. That is the honest reason a reply takes up to ten working days, and it is also why a message with a specific question in it gets a far better answer than a message asking for a chat.

Or write here.

Same people, same answering standard. Use this if you would rather have the subject sorted for you.

Feedback · goes to the mailbox for the subject you pick

Leave it empty if you are writing as yourself.
The site is English while the French mirror is being built; the mail is answered in either.
As long as it needs to be. A specific question gets a specific answer.
While you are here Optional, and separate from your message. Canadian anti-spam law asks for consent per mailing type, so we ask per type. One click unsubscribes.

Your name, your address and your message are used to answer you and to run the thing you asked about. Nothing here goes to a third party, and nothing here is a commitment on either side.

A row of letterboxes on a wooden rail at the kerb of a street in autumn, each painted a different colour, one of them standing open, fallen maple leaves across the grass.
A rank of letterboxes at the kerb, one of them standing open

Where we are.

Ottawa, Ontario. The festival is planned for one site on the west side of the city, and the work happens in community halls, in kitchens and on video calls until it does.

Ottawa · Ontario · Algonquin Anishinābe territory

130+ Diplomatic missions accredited in Canada Global Affairs Canada · resident diplomatic missions accredited in Canada, the great majority of them in Ottawa. This is the only hard festival number on this site.
324,960 Racialized residents of Ottawa Census 2021, Statistics Canada · 32.5% of the city

Two facts decide the city, and both of them are already true on the ground. The people are here, and so are the embassies that represent them, ten minutes apart.

There is no office to visit today and no counter to walk up to. Meetings happen where the community already meets — a parish hall, an association's back room, a restaurant on a Monday afternoon. Ask for one at communities@capitalcultures.com and we come to you.

The legal entity, as it stands today.

A grant officer, a landlord and a sponsor all ask this question first, so here is the state of it in plain words.

Registration in progress · September 2026

  1. Now · August 2026Now Objects with the lawyer The purposes are being written to pass a CRA reading, which is a slower job than the filing itself.
  2. September 2026Planned Articles of incorporation filed A new not-for-profit corporation under Ontario's ONCA, registered office in Ottawa, at least half of its directors living in this region. Online filing runs five working days.
  3. When the certificate landsPlanned Legal name, number and registered office published They go on this site the day they exist. Until then it publishes no corporation number and no street address, because it has none.
  4. By 30 November 2026Planned Charity application filed with the CRA The CRA works to a nine-month standard on a complete application, so the first edition runs without charitable status either way. Donations for 2027 go through a fiscal sponsor, and anyone who needs a tax receipt should ask before sending money. The same date sits on the mission page, because it is the same filing.

The people starting this run a Ukrainian festival in Lanark County, now in its fourth season. Its non-profit — Ukrainian Community of Lanark County, Ontario corporation number 1000983432 — is a contractor to the project under a service agreement, and the people who run it are the people starting Capital Cultures. That is a separate corporation in a separate county, and Capital Cultures is a new organisation with its own board in Ottawa.

“Capital Cultures Festival” is the working name of the event. The legal name of the corporation is chosen for the registry and goes on this site the moment the certificate comes back.

Most of it is answered already.

Twenty straight answers, refusals included.

What people ask when they write.

Six that come in every week. The rest are on the questions page.

Asked and answered · August 2026

Do you really answer everything?

Yes. Every message gets a human reply inside ten working days, and a message we cannot answer yet gets told exactly that with the date the answer is expected.

I already sent an application through a form. Should I email as well?

One is enough. A form lands in the same place with the fields already sorted, which makes it the faster of the two. Write to the mailbox only when something about your application changes.

Can I meet somebody in person?

Yes, once there is something to meet about. Community conversations start this autumn and we travel to you — a hall, an office, a restaurant on a quiet afternoon. Ask at communities@capitalcultures.com and say which part of the city you are in.

Something on this site is wrong. Who fixes it?

Write to hello@capitalcultures.com with the page and the line, and it gets corrected or explained in the same reply.

Anything about a community goes to communities@capitalcultures.com, because an article about a community is published with that community's own sign-off and gets corrected the same way.

What happens to what I send you?

Your address and your message are used to answer you and to run the thing you asked about. Consent for mailings is separate, split by type, never pre-ticked, and one click ends it.

Nothing goes to a third party. Ask at hello@capitalcultures.com to see everything held against your address, or to have it deleted, and the full privacy text is published with the rest of the legal pages.

Can I write in French?

Yes, and you get an answer in French. The site itself is English while the French mirror is being built, and the masthead marks FR as in preparation for exactly that reason.

Or go straight to the thing you came for.

One channel, and it is the mailing list.

Capital Cultures has no Instagram, no Facebook, no X, no TikTok and no YouTube. Anyone posting under this name today is somebody else.

Social accounts · planned · this list hears first

Accounts open when there is a team able to answer the messages that arrive with them. Until that day this list is the whole of it, and the people on it find out about the accounts before anyone else does.

What you want to hear about (required) Canadian anti-spam law asks for consent per mailing type, so we ask per type. One click unsubscribes, any time.

The mailing list is the only channel open today, and it is the first place anything new is said.

Say something. It changes the plan.

A festival with nothing booked is a festival that can still be argued with. The pavilion list, the site layout, the food street and the programme are all open, and the fastest way into any of them is a message.