01
Take a cut of your food
The percentage is zero and stays zero in this construction. A share of the counter comes back onto the agenda only alongside paid entry, and the first edition is free at the gate.
Join · 01 of 06 · communities
Host a pavilion.
You cook. You perform. You keep every dollar the counter takes.
Our plan for 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits
Where a pavilion stands today.
This door opened before the rest of the site because a community needs a year. Here is every part of it, with the settled parts marked settled and the open ones marked open.
Status · 28 August 2026 · rewritten the day a line changes
| Item | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Who can operate a pavilion | An Ontario non-profit with a majority of its board in the Ottawa region · settled |
| The pavilion fee | $0, and every dollar over your counter stays with you · settled |
| Expressions of interest | Open autumn 2026 · close January 2027 |
| Committee decisions | 15 February 2027 |
| How many pavilions | 10 in the working budget, 14 above the funding threshold · the committee sets the number on 15 February 2027 |
| The participation agreement | Being written now · the full text publishes on this page before interest opens |
| The form on this page | Open today · a first conversation, binding on neither side |
The counter is yours.
A community pavilion pays nothing to stand here, and it hands over nothing it earns. That decision is made, it is written into the participation agreement, and it comes first on this page because it is the reason a community spends a year getting ready.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026
$0
Pavilion fee for a community operator
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026 · a symbolic annual licence is discussed separately and is not set
Free
Entry for visitors, both days
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026 · the ceiling in this niche is $15 at the gate, and public funders ask for free entry
10 → 14
Pavilions in the plan we are budgeting to
The working budget carries 10; 14 open above the funding threshold at the cash gate on 15 February 2027 — the pavilions page carries whichever answer stands today
Communities in this city already run their own festivals — GreekFest, the Ottawa Lebanese Festival, Italian Week, the Capital Ukrainian Festival — and every one of them keeps the whole of its own kitchen. A shared weekend has to match that, so it does.
Two days, free at the gate, on one field in the middle of the capital. Your association operates the pavilion. Your menu, your programme, your exhibition, your name over the door. The festival carries the site, the permits, the tent, the power, the safety and the crowd — what you get lists the package line by line, and what you take on lists the eight things that come from your side.
100%
of pavilion takings stay with the pavilion
Food, drinks, souvenirs — every dollar over your counter is yours, both days. The festival earns from the commercial vendors it invites itself, from craft pitches, power, bottled water, the 50/50 draw, grants and sponsors.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026 · a revenue share was costed at 20 % and dropped: it would have netted the festival about $600 a year and taken a third of the community's reason to come
Four pages under this one.
Everything a board needs before it votes is written out in full on one of these four. Read them in any order; the application asks for what the first three describe.
Communities · 04 pages
How a pavilion is chosen.
The barrier is procedural, adapted from Folklorama, whose formula has held for fifty-five seasons. Nobody buys their way onto this field, and no fee keeps anybody off it.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026 · the gate model
| Question | Answer for the first edition |
|---|---|
| Who can operate | An organisation incorporated as a non-profit in Ontario, with a majority of its board living in the Ottawa region. |
| Who cannot operate | Diplomatic and consular missions, government agencies and political organisations. |
| Where embassies fit | As a programme partner sending an artist, an exhibition or equipment, or as a sponsor in the general list. The acceptance test: strike the mission's name out of the materials and the pavilion still stands on its own. The embassies page sets out all three levels. |
| What gets signed | A Community Participation Agreement for the season, renewable, plus an annual pavilion licence. The agreement page carries the eight sections. |
| What it costs to enter | Nothing. The pavilion fee is $0. |
| How the choosing runs | Five gates: expression of interest with mandatory disclosure, office screening, a pair risk review, an interview before the Programming and Licensing Committee, and signing. What happens after you send the form takes them one at a time. |
Rotation is announced from season one: a pavilion can sit a year out and come back. Folklorama tells its visitors the same thing every season, and the alternative is a press story about collapse every time somebody takes a breath. About seventy community organisations run in this city by our own count, the first edition takes a fraction of that pool, and the ones left out are first in the queue for 2028.
The calendar.
- Aug – Oct 2026Now The participation agreement is written The contract exists before the first invitation goes out. Talks with the first communities run alongside it.
- Autumn 2026Planned Expressions of interest open The form on this page starts the conversation and puts you on the list.
- January 2027Planned Expressions of interest close
- 15 February 2027Planned Committee decisions An estimate from the recruitment calendar; it sits on the same date as the festival's own cash gate.
- Spring 2027Planned Agreements signed, licences issued, menus and programmes settled
- July 2027Planned Health packet and insurance certificates Ottawa Public Health on 24 July, certificate to the City on 28 July.
- 7 – 8 August 2027Planned Two days on the field Subject to permits from the City and the NCC.
What the festival does not do.
Four lines that a board tends to ask about in the same meeting. All four are in the participation agreement, and none of them moves with the budget.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026
02
Programme your pavilion
Your dishes, your dances, your exhibition, your hours. The office checks the menu list against the licence and the site rules, and that check is the whole of the interference.
03
Charge you for the structure
The tent, the tables, the chairs, the fencing and the power distribution are the festival's cost. A community operator receives no invoice for them.
04
Sell your list
What you write in a form is used for that form. Marketing letters need a separate tick, and it sits unticked on every one of ours.
Start the conversation.
Three fields, thirty seconds, and a person writes back. Use it to put your organisation on the list before your board has met, and fill in the full application when it has.
Intake 01 · communities · 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 · 01 of 06