01
Your legal status
Incorporated in Ontario as a non-profit, incorporated elsewhere, a registered charity, an unincorporated group, or incorporation under way. Your registration or business number if one exists.
Communities · 04 of 04 · apply
Put your community on the list.
Ten minutes of typing opens the conversation and puts your organisation in front of the committee that decides in February 2027. This first pass commits neither of us.
Our plan for 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits
What this form is.
A first pass, answered by a person at the festival office. It puts your organisation on the list for the formal expression of interest, and it decides nothing on its own.
Status · 29 August 2026 · intake 01 · communities
| Stage | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|
| This form | A first conversation. Binding on neither side. | Open today |
| A reply from the office | A person reads it and writes back. A call or a visit to your board if you want one. | Within ten working days |
| Expression of interest | The formal form, with the disclosure section in full. | Autumn 2026 – January 2027 |
| Office screening | Legal entity, insurance, track record, two referees from the Ottawa ecosystem. | Winter 2027 |
| Interview and plan defence | The Programming & Licensing Committee, five to seven people. | January – February 2027 |
| Decision | In writing, with the reason named. An appeal goes to the board. | 15 February 2027 |
| Signing | Community Participation Agreement plus the annual pavilion licence. | Spring 2027 |
Have these to hand.
Six answers make the form quick. Approximate answers are welcome on all of them; an honest estimate beats a confident round number every time.
The form saves nothing, so gather first
Fields marked required on the form are the ones an answer cannot be written without
02
How many people you can field
Volunteers across two days plus a build day, kitchen included. This number predicts more about a pavilion than any other answer on the form, so give the one you believe rather than the one that sounds good.
03
What you would show
Programme and exhibition: dance, music, a craft demonstrated live, the objects you would put on the panels, the theme you would take for the year.
04
What you would cook
The dishes you would serve, and the one small tasting portion you would add to the shared list every pavilion carries.
05
What you have run before
Festivals, church suppers, school fairs, a booth at somebody else's event. Scale matters far less than the fact that your group has done a day like this together.
06
How your community actually hears things
Group chats, a mailing list, a parish, a temple, a weekend school, a radio hour. This part lives outside every public database, and it decides whether your audience arrives with you.
14
days is the longest you wait for a reply
Every application is read by a person at the festival office and answered inside two weeks, including the ones we cannot take this year. A community that hears nothing for a month is a community that has been let down, and that is the one part of this process that costs us nothing to get right.
A commitment of the festival office, made 28 August 2026 · this page carries it so it can be held against us
Intake 01 · communities · answered by a person
The application.
Everything here is a first pass. The committee decides in February 2027 on the formal expression of interest, and nothing you write below is held against that.
One organisation, one form · write again if anything changes
After you press send.
Eight steps between this form and a plate served on the field. Every date ahead of today is our plan and says so.
Organisers' decision of record, 27 August 2026 · the five gates, and the calendar around them
- As soon as it sendsNow Your answers land with the festival office Filed under community applications. A notification goes to the person who handles them.
- Within ten working daysNow A person writes back With questions, an offer to meet your board, or an honest answer about the year.
- Autumn 2026Planned The formal expression of interest opens You are sent it directly. It repeats what you wrote here and adds the disclosure section in full.
- January 2027Planned Expressions of interest close
- Winter 2027Planned Office screening Legal entity, insurance, track record, two referees from the Ottawa ecosystem.
- Winter 2027Planned Interview and plan defence The Programming & Licensing Committee, five to seven people, at least two of them unconnected to any community in the running.
- 15 February 2027Planned Decisions, in writing With the reason named. An appeal goes to the board in writing within fourteen days and is answered within thirty.
- Spring 2027Planned Agreement signed, licence issued, academy starts
What happens to your answers.
Every field on the form is there because a decision depends on it. The ones a festival usually asks for and never uses are missing on purpose.
What happens to what you send
- Your application is used for your application. It goes to the festival office and into the participant record for your organisation.
- Marketing letters need a separate tick, per mailing type, none of them pre-ticked. Consent given for one type covers that type alone.
- Dates of birth, home addresses and citizenship are never asked for. Each unnecessary field lowers the number of communities who finish the form and adds an obligation to store something.
- Your channels stay yours. What you write about your mailing list and your groups is read by the office and shared with nobody.
- Withdraw at any point by writing to the office, and the record goes with you.
Roughly seventy distinguishable community organisations run in this city by our own count — forty-seven Ottawa entries in the provincial multicultural catalogue plus twenty-four ethnocultural grant recipients of the City in 2024, minus one overlap. That is an estimate, and it is the reason the first edition takes a fraction of the pool and keeps a queue for the second.
Questions about the form itself.
Anything else goes to the office and gets answered here.
hello@capitalcultures.com
We are not incorporated yet. Should we still write?
Yes, and write now. A pavilion operator has to be an Ontario non-profit with a majority of its board in the Ottawa region, and incorporation takes months. Autumn 2026 is exactly the moment to start both things at once. Say where you are on the form.
What if 2027 is too soon for us?
Say so on the form — the year question is on it — and we put you on the 2028 list. Rotation is public from the first season, so taking a year is a normal move here, and the door stays open.
Can we send it before our board has voted?
Yes, and most groups do. This is a first conversation. A board that wants the rules in front of it before voting will find the whole frame of the agreement on this site already.
We cannot answer everything yet.
Send what you have. The required fields are the ones an answer cannot be written without; the rest can arrive later, and «undecided» is a real answer on the kitchen question.
Can two groups apply for one community?
Both applications are read. Where two organisations from one community both want a pavilion, the office asks them to talk to each other first, and a joint pavilion is a normal outcome.
Does applying cost anything?
Nothing, at any stage. The pavilion fee is $0 and every dollar over your counter stays with you.
What if we are turned down?
You get the reason in writing and a place in the queue for the next edition. An appeal goes to the board in writing within fourteen days and is answered within thirty.
The rest of it.
Four pages hold the pavilion offer. Read them in any order; the application asks for what the first three describe.
Communities · 04 of 04
One form, ten minutes.
The committee meets in February 2027. A community that starts the conversation this autumn has the year it needs.