01
Gates and welcome
First face of the festival. Counting people in, handing out the site map and the passport, pointing at the toilets, answering the same six questions with the same good humour. Entry is free, so the gate is a welcome desk.
Join · 03 of 06 · volunteers
Two days run on volunteers.
Gates, kitchen street, stages, information, the children's zone, waste, accessibility, parking and the bike valet. Every one of those is a volunteer shift. Put your name down now and the coordinator writes to you the week registration opens.
Our plan for 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits
The size of the job, in the open.
A festival this shape is measured in volunteer hours before it is measured in anything else. Here is where the corps stands, then the arithmetic we planned it on, with every figure marked for what it is.
Status · 28 August 2026 · rewritten the day a line changes
| Item | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| The list on this page | Open today · name, roles, days · binding on neither side |
| Registration and shift booking | Winter 2027, once the venue licence fixes the gate hours |
| The nine roles | Set · hours per role follow the permit window |
| Age floor | Planned at 14 · cash handling, licensed areas and security stay 18 and over |
| Police record checks | Filed by 20 June 2027 · free with our letter, $74 without it |
| Training | July 2027 · a badge is issued against completed training |
| Shift clock, volunteer area, the Friday build day | Open · all three follow the venue licence |
320 h
Volunteer hours per 1,000 visits
Our planning norm · estimate derived from Carassauga 2025, 92,617 hours ÷ 289,378 visits
3,200 h
Hours the first edition needs
Estimate · the norm applied to the goal of 8,000–12,000 visits over the two days, costed at its midpoint. Visits get counted for the first time in August 2027
1,115 h
Hours the festival itself recruits
Estimate · about 35% of the total; the rest arrives with the pavilions
240–320
People we need on the list
Estimate · at ten hours each, which is a realistic first-year load
The corps runs in two layers, counted separately from the first edition. The layer you are reading about is ours: recruited through the city, trained by us, badged by us, worked across the whole site. The second layer arrives with each pavilion — a community brings its own crew, and the rule that every dollar taken at a pavilion stays with that community is what pays for it.
Ten hours a person is the honest first-year figure. A mature festival gets closer to twenty-seven hours from each volunteer, and it takes years of the same people coming back to get there. Year one is built on more people doing less each, which is why the list matters more than the roster right now.
Three pages under this one.
Everything summarised below is written out in full on its own page.
Volunteers · 03 pages
Nine roles.
Pick the one that sounds like you. Every role gets a briefing before the day and a coordinator on the radio during it, and swapping between roles across two shifts is normal.
Volunteer roles · 01–09 · planned for 2027
Roles are set. Hours per role follow the permit window.
02
Kitchen street
Queue shaping, table turnover, water points, keeping the aisles clear for deliveries and for wheelchairs. Cooking and selling stay with the community crews and the vendors, who hold the food-handler certificates.
03
Stages
Front of stage and backstage support. Escorting groups from the green room, holding the viewing area clear, watching sightlines, running water to performers, helping a dance company get twenty costumes across a field.
04
Information
The desk everyone walks to. Programme times, lost property, lost people, where to charge a phone, which pavilion is serving what. Second languages do their heaviest work in this role.
05
Children's zone
Crafts, games, the passport stamps, keeping the play area safe and keeping an eye on who leaves with whom. This role needs a vulnerable-sector police check, which is free and takes a fortnight to come back.
06
Waste and clean-up
Sorting stations, bin runs, the sweep at the end of each day. Unglamorous and the single most visible thing about a festival site the morning after, which is why it carries a name and a coordinator of its own.
07
Accessibility
Clearing what stands in a visitor's way — routes, seating, the quiet zone, the accessible queue, getting somebody from the drop-off to the gate. Training for it is a condition of the badge, and the whole corps gets it.
08
Parking and bike valet
Directing arrivals, running the bike valet, keeping the accessible spaces free and the emergency lanes open. High-visibility, outdoor, on your feet, and the role that decides whether the first ten minutes of somebody's day go well.
09
Build and strike
The day before and the evening after. Tents, tables, signage, fencing, cable runs, and then all of it back into the trucks. Lifting work with a briefing first; the tools that need a licence stay with the contractors.
Shifts.
Four-hour blocks across a nine-hour operating day, two days running, with a build day in front and a strike in the evening at the end. Two blocks is a good weekend. One is welcome.
Structure planned · exact clock times land with the permit
| Block | When | Who works it | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | Friday 6 August, afternoon | Build and strike, signage, gates | Four hours |
| Opening | Saturday 7 August, first half | Every role | Four hours |
| Afternoon | Saturday 7 August, second half | Every role | Four hours |
| Close | Saturday 7 August, evening | Waste, information, parking | Two to three hours |
| Opening | Sunday 8 August, first half | Every role | Four hours |
| Afternoon | Sunday 8 August, second half | Every role | Four hours |
| Strike | Sunday 8 August, evening | Build and strike, waste | Four hours |
Booking your own blocks arrives with the volunteer account in winter 2027. Until then the list is the mechanism: tell us the days you can give and the role you want, and the coordinator comes back with a shift when the calendar is real.
- TodayNow The volunteer list is open Name, role interest, days. Nothing is a commitment on either side yet.
- October 2026Planned Event permit application to the NCC for LeBreton Flats The venue fixes the gate hours, and the gate hours fix the shifts.
- Winter 2027Planned Registration and shift booking open Everyone on the list hears first, with the roster attached.
- July 2027Planned Training for the whole corps Accessibility, safety, your role. A badge is issued against completed training.
- 6–8 August 2027Planned Build, two festival days, strike Subject to permits.
- Autumn 2027Planned Hours letters go out and the honour roll publishes Every volunteer named, by their own consent.
What comes back to you.
Volunteering here is unpaid, and saying so first is the only decent way to run the rest of this list. Here is everything we plan to put on the other side of the deal.
Our commitments · budgeted for the first edition
01
The shirt
A festival volunteer shirt, yours to keep. On site it is how a visitor finds somebody who knows the answer, and afterwards it is the thing that says you built the first edition.
02
Fed on shift
A meal on every shift of four hours or more, from the kitchen street, plus water all day. Tell us on the form what you cannot eat and that is what gets ordered.
03
Training that transfers
Two courses at the participant academy — Event accessibility, which is Ontario law for volunteers, and Safety on the ground — plus the briefing for your own role. It is real training with a real record, and it counts wherever you volunteer next.
04
A letter for your hours
Signed, on letterhead, with your hours and your role. It closes the Ontario forty, it goes into a scholarship file, and it works as a reference for a first job.
05
The badge and the site
Your badge opens the zones your role needs and the volunteer area. Between shifts you are a visitor with the best possible orientation: the whole kitchen street and the whole programme.
06
Your name in the honour roll
The archive of the 2027 edition names every volunteer who wants to be named, and consent for that is a tick box you fill in yourself.
Training comes before the badge. A briefing comes before the shift. A coordinator stays on the radio all day, so nobody stands in a field wondering who to ask.
Students: the forty hours.
Ontario asks every high-school graduate for 40 hours of community involvement. Two festival weekend shifts and a build day put a serious dent in that.
OSSD community involvement · Ontario Ministry of Education
- Hours count from the summer before grade 9.
- We sign the form, on letterhead, with dates and hours.
- Planned minimum age: 14, in step with the volunteer floor other pavilion festivals hold.
- Cash handling, any licensed area and security stay closed under 18.
- The children's zone needs a vulnerable-sector check, which under-18s cannot obtain — so under-18s work the other roles.
- Bring a friend. Shifts are better in pairs, and we roster pairs on request.
What we need from you.
Short list, and everything on it exists for a reason we can explain. Where a rule comes from the police, the province or the City, the line says so.
Requirements · published before registration opens
| Requirement | Who it applies to | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Age 14 or over · planned floor | Everyone. Cash handling, licensed areas and security are 18 and over. | Nothing |
| A second language, if you have one | Welcome everywhere. It decides the roster at information and the gates. | Nothing |
| Police record check | Roles that work unsupervised near the public — today that is Gates and welcome. | $0 with our letter · $74 without it |
| Vulnerable-sector check, level 3 | Children's zone, lost children, accompanying visitors with disabilities, anyone with access to personal data. | $0 with our letter · fingerprints $0 with it, $56 without |
| Event accessibility and Safety on the ground | The whole corps, staff and pavilion crews included. Both are academy courses. | Nothing · July 2027 |
| Role briefing | Everyone, at the start of the first shift. | Fifteen minutes |
| An emergency contact | Everyone. It is on the intake form and it stays with the coordinators. | Nothing |
Our letter on letterhead, naming your role, is what makes a check free, and it is issued the moment your role is confirmed. Without it the same check costs $74, and a co-op student pays $74 either way. Checks are processed by Ottawa Police in seven to ten business days and the applicant has to be an Ottawa resident, so the useful window is short: applications close on 20 June 2027 for an August festival.
Training runs in July 2027, online with one session on site, and it covers accessibility, customer service to the Ontario standard and the safety brief for your own role. Languages beyond English go on the form and go straight into the roster at the gates and the information desk.
Work a volunteer cannot take on.
- Licensed security. Ontario licenses it and the City checks the licence.
- Pouring alcohol without Smart Serve certification, in any year we hold a licence.
- Preparing or selling food without a food-handler certificate — that work sits with the community crews and the vendors who hold one.
- First aid and medical care. First aiders are dedicated to the position and hold no second role, which is the rule the City sets.
- Pyrotechnics, work at height, and operating machinery.
Bring your team.
A company team takes one task for one shift and finishes it together. Build day, waste and sorting stations, water points, the bike valet — they suit a group that arrives at the same hour and wants to see the result.
Corporate volunteering · agreed team by team
How a team day works
Write to us with the size of the group and the date. The coordinator comes back with one or two tasks that fit that number, a named contact for the day, a briefing, shirts, and a photograph you can put in a report. Everyone on the team completes the same training as the rest of the corps.
Ottawa's corporate giving programmes ask, in their own published criteria, for employee volunteering opportunities and for measurable staff engagement. A team day on this site produces both, along with the hours letter that makes them countable.
Sponsorship and a team day are separate conversations, and one has never been a condition of the other. Teams are welcome from companies that give us nothing else.
Every hour you give is logged and signed on letterhead — for the Ontario forty, for a scholarship file, for a first job.
Questions.
The ones that arrive before somebody puts their name down. Anything missing goes in the notes box on the sign-up form, or straight to the coordinator.
hello@capitalcultures.com
Can I sign up now and decide the days later?
Yes, and most people do. Tick put me where you need me, leave the days broad, and the coordinator comes back with options once the roster is real.
What if I can only give one shift?
One shift is a real contribution and it gets the same shirt, the same meal and the same letter. Four hours from a few hundred people is how a first edition gets built.
I am not in Ottawa yet.
Put your name down anyway and say so in the notes. Police record checks are the one part that needs Ottawa residency, so out-of-town volunteers get the roles that need no check.
Can my community's pavilion crew register through this form?
A pavilion crew is organised by its own community and registered through the pavilion agreement — that route is on the communities page. Use this form if you want to work the festival site itself rather than one pavilion.
Which courses does a volunteer take?
Two, and both are free: Event accessibility, which Ontario law puts on every volunteer, and Safety on the ground. Your own role briefing sits on top of them. All of it lives at the participant academy, which opens in winter 2027.
When do I actually hear from someone?
An acknowledgement within a few days, and the real conversation when registration opens in winter 2027. If the plan changes before that, everyone on the list is written to first.
Get on the volunteer list.
Five minutes. A person reads every one of these and writes back. When registration and shift booking open in winter 2027, this list goes first.
Volunteer intake 01 · goes to the volunteer coordinator
The form asks your name, your age on the weekend, the roles you fancy, the days you can give, the languages you speak and anything the coordinator should know before placing you. The sign-up page holds the only copy of it, along with what happens to your answers.
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 · 03 of 06