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Journal · strand 01 · news

What moved this fortnight.

A festival gets built out of applications, refusals, meetings and money. Most organisations report that once a year in a glossy summary. This strand reports it as it happens, including the parts that go wrong, because a public record of the building is worth more to the next organiser than a press release.

Get the news strand by email What it covers

Zero posts published · the strand opens in autumn 2026 · current as of 29 August 2026

The strand as it stands
LineState
Posts published0
OpensAutumn 2026
RhythmEvery two weeks, and on the day something happens
LengthShort — one thing, told straight
SetbacksPublished the same as everything else
ChannelThis page, and the news list by email

Nothing has been posted here yet.

Saying that plainly costs less than filling a page with placeholders. The first post goes up when the first thing worth reporting happens, and the list below is the queue of things we expect to be reporting on.

Honest state · this section disappears with the first post

  1. Autumn 2026Planned The strand opens First posts: where the permit conversation stands with the City and the NCC, and which communities have said yes to a first meeting.
  2. Winter 2027Planned Intake opens, and the news follows it Vendors, volunteers and performers. Every intake that opens gets a post on the day it opens.
  3. 15 February 2027Planned The scale decision The meeting that counts confirmed money and settles how big the first edition is. Whichever answer it gives is published here that week.
  4. Spring 2027Planned Programme, site and marketplace The schedule, the site plan, and the catalogue opening for sellers.
  5. August 2027Planned The festival itself Our plan is 7–8 August 2027 at LeBreton Flats, subject to permits.
  6. Autumn 2027Planned The account of what happened What worked, what did not, what it cost, and what the next edition changes.
A weathered wooden noticeboard under autumn maples with seven blank sheets of coloured paper pinned to it in yellow, red, green, orange and indigo, a hand pressing one flat.
The board this strand fills, photographed empty

How this strand is written.

Five rules, set before the first post, so the strand cannot quietly turn into marketing once there is something to sell.

House rules · they apply to every post

  • One thing per post. Short, dated, and readable in a minute.
  • Setbacks go out the same as wins. A refused grant, a lost venue and a community that changed its mind are all reported here.
  • Numbers carry their source. A figure without one stays out, and an estimate is labelled as an estimate.
  • Nobody is named without being asked. A community, a volunteer or a partner reads the sentence about them before it publishes.
  • A correction is a post. Something wrong gets fixed in place, dated, and said out loud rather than edited away.
An empty community hall with folding chairs in a wide circle on a wooden floor, notebooks, papers and mugs left on the seats, tall windows onto a red brick street.
An empty hall, chairs in a circle, notebooks and mugs left on the seats

The beat.

Five things get reported here. Anything that does not belong to one of them belongs in the stories strand or on the page it is about.

Strand 01 · five subjects, and no others

Five subjects · a sixth needs a reason

01

Permits and the venue

Where the application stands with the City of Ottawa and with the National Capital Commission, what each of them has asked for, and what a condition attached to a permit means for the two days.
02

Communities joining

Who has agreed to bring a pavilion, what they have taken on, and who signs it. No community appears here until they have said yes and read what the post says about them.
03

Money

Grants applied for, grants answered, sponsorship agreed, and the shape of the budget as it moves. A refused application is reported the same as a successful one.
04

Dates that move

Written down here on the day they move, with what caused it. A festival that quietly edits its own dates is one nobody can plan around.
05

The site and the sections

Which parts of this website open when, which forms go live, and what the French mirror is doing.

Get it as it happens.

The news list carries these posts and nothing else. Canadian anti-spam law asks for consent per type of letter, so the three lists are three separate ticks and none of them is ticked for you.

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

Painted letterboxes on a wooden rail at the kerb of a suburban street, one of them standing open, fallen maple leaves on the grass below.
Letterboxes at the kerb, one of them standing open

Journal · strand 01 of 04

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