01
Pavilion
Held by a community's crew. Opens your own pavilion, the participants' area and the service entrance, across both days.
Join · 06 of 06 · accreditation
Badges for the people who build it.
Every visitor walks in free. A badge is a work pass: it opens the kitchens, the loading lanes, the crew areas and the back of the stage, and it goes to people who finished the training and filed the papers. Seven kinds, one rule.
Our plan for 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits
Free to walk in. Accredited to work.
Free entry is a decision already made and written into the year-one budget. It settles the whole visitor half of this page in one line, and it leaves accreditation with exactly one job: controlling who stands on working ground while the kitchens are running.
Status · 28 August 2026 · rewritten the day a line changes
| Item | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Entry for visitors | Free, both days, with a passport and without one · settled |
| What a badge is for | Access control on working ground · seven kinds |
| The issuing rule | Training passed and documents filed · settled, and it binds the founder in the same words as a first-time volunteer |
| Courses a badge is issued against | Participant academy, from winter 2027 |
| The participant portal | Winter 2027 · it holds the status, the documents and the training log |
| Accreditation intake | Summer 2027 |
| Badge applications close | 24 July 2027 · two weeks before the planned gates |
| Badge printing, lanyard colours, the document list per role | Open · they settle with the operations plan over the winter of 2027 |
A badge is access control on a working site. Behind the pavilion counters there is hot oil, gas, cabling, a loading lane and a stage lift, and the people who belong there have trained for it. The badge is how a marshal at a service gate can tell in one second which side of that line you are on.
Everything else — the whole festival a visitor comes for — stays open to everybody, at no charge, both days. The pavilions, the stages, the food streets and the market need no badge, no wristband and no booking.
Seven badges.
One for each way of working the site. The colour on the lanyard says which, and the name on the front says who. Access follows the work, at whatever level the person doing it sits.
Accreditation · badge types 01–07 · planned for the 2027 edition
Accreditation · what each badge opens · planned
02
Vendor
Held by everyone trading on the site. Opens your own pitch, the loading lanes during the hours they run, and the participants' area.
03
Volunteer
Held per shift. Opens the zones your role works in and the crew catering, for the hours you are rostered.
04
Performer
Held by everyone who goes on a stage. Opens the back of the stage, the dressing rooms and the stage itself at your slot.
05
Press
Held by accredited media. Opens every zone except the back of the stage, plus the marked photo positions at each stage.
06
Partner
Held by sponsors, at the level their agreement sets. Opens the guest area and their own activation space.
07
Organiser
Held by the core team and the coordinators. Opens everything on the site, and answers for all of it.
How a badge is issued.
The rules are short and they are hard. A badge is issued against completed training and filed documents, it carries the holder's name, and roles that work more than one day carry a photograph as well. The application goes in two weeks before the event.
Issuing rules · same for every badge type
- Step 01Planned Your application is accepted A role comes from an accepted application — a community, a vendor, a volunteer shift, a performance slot, a media accreditation, a partner agreement. Self-registration issues nothing.
- Step 02Planned The course for your role is finished Courses live in the participant academy and the portal keeps the log. Safety on the ground and Event accessibility reach everyone who wears our badge.
- Step 03Planned Your documents are in Certificates, insurance, police record checks where the role needs one. The portal shows what is still missing without anyone having to write to a coordinator.
- Step 04Planned You apply for the badge, two weeks out 24 July 2027 for the planned edition. The two weeks are what printing, checking and fixing mistakes actually take.
- Step 05Planned The badge is printed with your name on it Named, and photographed for roles that work more than one day. It travels with you and stays with you, never with the organisation, and it is not transferable.
| Badge | Training | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| Pavilion | Safety on the ground · Event accessibility · Handling food on a field · How a pavilion actually works for the coordinator and the deputy | Certificate of insurance naming the City of Ottawa as Additional Insured · crew list with a coordinator and a deputy |
| Vendor | Safety on the ground · Event accessibility · Handling food on a field where food is involved | Certificate of insurance · Ottawa Public Health package by 24 July 2027 · power and equipment declarations |
| Volunteer | Event accessibility · Safety on the ground · your own role briefing | Police record check where the role needs one · emergency contact |
| Performer | Event accessibility · Safety on the ground · the stage briefing | Confirmed slot · technical rider · group list |
| Press | Site briefing | Outlet · editorial contact · the format you file in |
| Partner | Site briefing | Activation plan · crew list for the stand |
| Organiser | Everything that applies, plus the evacuation drill | Everything, and the training log that proves it |
Two of those lines carry the weight. Food handling is a certification: everyone who cooks or serves needs it, and one certified handler stands on the point in every working hour. Police record checks are a vulnerable-sector matter wherever the role touches the children’s zone, lost children, escorting visitors with disabilities or personal data, and those go in by 20 June 2027 because they take the longest to come back.
Training is the expensive half of this, and it is the half that makes the site safe. The Participant Academy opens in winter 2027 with the courses each badge is issued against, and the portal keeps the record — status, documents, completed courses, badge issued — so that a whole crew sits on one screen instead of a stack of email threads.
Training completed and documents filed. Nobody works this festival on a promise to do it later.
One opens doors. One collects stamps.
A badge is access control. A passport is a souvenir.
The passport is a game.
A small book you pick up on the day, free, and carry around the site. Every pavilion has a stamp of its own. Fill the page and there is a small prize at the end of it — that is the whole mechanism, and it is the cheapest way we know to walk somebody through a field they would otherwise cross in a straight line.
Visitor passport · free · planned for 2027
01Planned
Pick one up, free
02Planned
First pavilion stamp
03Planned
Keep going
04Planned
Fill the page
05Planned
Small prize
Every box on this strip: planned
| Festival passport | Accreditation badge | |
|---|---|---|
| Who holds it | Any visitor who wants one | People working the festival |
| What it costs | Nothing | Nothing |
| What it opens | Nothing at all — entry to the festival is free for everyone, with a passport and without one | Working ground: back of house, loading lanes, crew areas, the back of the stage |
| How you get it | Pick one up on the day | Application accepted, course finished, documents filed |
| When | On the day, at the gate | Two weeks before the gates open |
| What it is for | Seeing the whole site and taking something home | Access control on working ground |
The stamps do a second job for us, quietly: they say which pavilions people actually reached. A first-year festival has no attendance history at all, and a routing count taken from a souvenir costs nothing and asks nobody for their data.
When each door opens.
Accreditation is the last thing to switch on, because everything it checks has to exist first — the courses, the portal, the insurance, the record checks. Here is the order, with the dates we are working to.
Every step ahead of today is marked planned
- Winter 2027Planned Participant Academy and the portal open Courses first. A badge is issued against a finished course, so the course has to exist months ahead of the badge.
- By 20 June 2027Planned Police record checks filed These take the longest, so they go in first. Ottawa Police process a volunteer check in 7 to 10 working days and ask for an organisation letter naming the role — we write that letter for every volunteer who needs one.
- Summer 2027Planned Accreditation intake opens The form goes live on this page and inside the portal, and every accepted participant gets told directly.
- July 2027Planned Event accessibility across the whole corps Staff, coordinators, volunteers and pavilion crews alike. This is the training nobody is exempt from.
- 24 July 2027Planned Badge applications close Two weeks before the gates. Food vendor packages are due at Ottawa Public Health on the same date.
- 28 July 2027Planned Certificates of insurance lodged Ours with the City and the NCC, each community's and each vendor's with us.
- 7–8 August 2027Planned Badges on, gates open, entry free Subject to permits.
Questions.
Most of them are the same question in different words: which of these two things do I need. This list grows as the letters arrive.
hello@capitalcultures.com
I am coming as a visitor. Do I need a badge?
Walk in. Entry is free across both days, and a badge does nothing for a visitor — every part of the festival a visitor comes for is open to everyone at no charge.
Is the passport a ticket?
The passport is a souvenir with a stamp from every pavilion, and it opens nothing. Entry is free with it and free without it. Picking one up is worth doing for the walk and the small prize at the end.
When can I apply for a badge?
Intake opens in summer 2027 and closes on 24 July 2027, two weeks before the planned gates. Leaving your details in the queue below gets you told on the first day.
Can I get a badge without doing the course?
The course is the condition. Training completed and documents filed is the whole rule, and it applies to the founder in the same words as to a first-time volunteer. Courses open in the Participant Academy in winter 2027, which is early enough for anyone who starts then.
Somebody dropped out. Can another person use their badge?
Badges carry a name, and roles that work more than one day carry a photograph. A replacement person files their own training and documents and gets their own badge — which is why the crew list goes in early and the two-week window exists.
I am press. Does this page apply to me?
Media accreditation runs through Partners · Media, together with the press kit. The issuing rule is the same one on this page, and the badge is the same badge.
My community will bring twenty people. Twenty separate applications?
One crew list from the coordinator. The portal holds the list, shows which people still owe a course or a document, and issues the badges in one batch. Each person still finishes their own training.
What happens if the venue or the date changes?
Every date on this page moves with the edition, and this page gets rewritten the week that happens. The plan today is 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits.
Get told the day it opens.
Accreditation intake opens in summer 2027. Leave your role here and you hear about it on the first day, with the course list and the document list for that role attached.
Accreditation · intake queue · answered by a person
Where to go next.
Six pages hold this section. Four of them are ways of taking part, and the last two sit underneath all four.
Join · 06 of 06