01
What a booking includes
How many people, how many hours, how many musicians, how many courses. The commonest reason a booking sours is two people who meant different things by the same word.
Market · shelf two · services
A hundred plates. A band. A dance floor.
Somebody in this city caters a wedding for two hundred, tunes an oud, teaches a school assembly to dance, or interprets an appointment at a hospital. Most of them are booked through a cousin who knows a cousin. This shelf is the shorter route, open all year, and it hands you the provider directly.
Nothing listed yet · the catalogue opens spring 2027 · booked directly with the provider · current as of 29 August 2026
| Line | State |
|---|---|
| Listings live | 0 |
| Categories at opening | 12 |
| Opens | Spring 2027 |
| Listing fee | None |
| Booking | Direct with the provider |
| Rates | The provider's to quote |
Shelf 02 · twelve categories at opening
Twelve categories open the shelf.
Every box below is empty today. A thirteenth arrives the week somebody offers a service that has nowhere to stand, and asking a provider is a better way to build the list than guessing at it.
Twelve at opening · a thirteenth arrives when somebody needs it
01Planned
Catering
02Planned
Home cooks
03Planned
Cakes
04Planned
Musicians
05Planned
DJs & sound
06Planned
Dance
07Planned
Workshops
08Planned
Event decor
09Planned
Photo & film
10Planned
Languages
11Planned
Tailoring
12Planned
Henna & ritual
Every box on this strip: planned
Translating and interpreting sit on this shelf as well · a service listing carries a rate as a guide, the area covered, and how far the provider travels
Six lines · what a listing carries
What a service listing carries.
A service is harder to photograph than a bowl, so the description does more of the work. Six lines, read before a listing goes up.
Six lines · a listing missing one comes back with the reason
Six lines · every listing, read by a person before it appears
02
What it depends on
A kitchen on site, power, parking, a load-in door, a minimum number of guests, a deposit. Say it in the listing, where it saves everybody three messages.
03
A rate as a guide
Per head, per hour, per set, or a starting figure for a quote. The number is yours to set and yours to change; a listing with no signal at all reads as a dead end.
04
How far you travel
The neighbourhoods, the city, the region, or as far as somebody will pay for. Gatineau counts as local, and the listing should say whether it does for you.
05
Your own photographs and recordings
Work you actually did, used with the permission of whoever is in it. A recording of somebody else's ensemble is refused, and so is a plate you did not cook.
06
The licences you hold
Confirmed on the form, and kept by you. The catalogue keeps no copy, and it takes your word until somebody has reason to doubt it.
How booking works here.
The catalogue introduces you and then steps out of the way. That keeps our obligations at moderation and keeps the whole of the fee with the person doing the work.
Stage one · the agreement is between you and the provider
- You send an enquiry and the provider answers. It reaches them with your name, your date and a way to reply.
- The quote, the deposit and the contract are theirs. Capital Cultures holds no money and is party to no booking.
- Ask for the paperwork if it matters to you. A caterer's permit, a musician's insurance for a licensed venue — a provider who has it will show it.
- Put the agreement in writing. Two lines of email naming what, when, how many and how much prevents most of what goes wrong.
- A moderated listing is not an endorsement. It means the listing met the rules on the day a person read it.
- Report a listing that misleads. A person reads every report, and one that broke a rule comes down with the reason in writing.
Capital Cultures holds no money and is party to no booking. The quote, the deposit and the contract are the provider's.
What this shelf refuses.
Thirteen lines hold for the whole catalogue. Four of them do most of the work on a services shelf.
The full table lives on the marketplace rules page
- Medicines, cures and health claims. A massage is a service. A treatment for an illness is refused.
- Anything needing a licence we cannot see. Send the licence and the answer changes.
- Cooking for the public without an approved kitchen. The permit conversation comes first, and we will point you at it.
- Campaigning, recruitment and petitions. The festival stays out of other people's arguments, and so does its catalogue.
Market · shelf 02 of 03
The rest of the market.
I cater out of my own kitchen. Can I list?
Sealed, shelf-stable goods list on the goods shelf today. Cooking for the public to eat straight away needs an approved kitchen and a public-health permit, and the home-cook category exists to point you at that conversation rather than around it.
Do you take a cut of a booking?
No. Money never runs through this site at stage one, so there is nothing to take a cut of.
Can I list in French?
Listings get their second language with the French mirror of the site. Say in your listing which languages you work in — that is useful to a client from the first day.
What if a client does not pay?
That is between the two of you, and the rules page says so before anybody agrees to anything. Tell us as well: one account starts a conversation, a pattern closes a shopfront.
Does listing here get me a stage slot in August?
No. The festival programme runs its own intake with its own terms, and a listing here is a year-round shopfront rather than an application to perform.
Get booked all year.
A wedding in April, a school assembly in November, a hall that needs a band next month. Open a shopfront and be findable.