BEST OF OTTAWA 2019: Festivals

 After over 20-years writing about life in Ottawa, we think we have a pretty good idea of the best of what this city has to offer. In this weekly series, we’ll share our picks with you — our top hotels, live music venues, local brews, bands and more. Check, share and

Ottawa festival season do’s and don’ts

 If you’re like me, you totally love eating uncooked Beeferoni with peanut butter coated celery sticks. Annnd, you also live for festival season! The sunshine, all the live tuneage, the discovery of a new artist, the lawn chairs…  Umm, wait, maybe not those.                                                                                                                             Each year our O-town festivals just seem

It’s Festival City Time Again! Here Are Some Summer Concert Picks to Get You Started

 Ahh, the beginning of June….that snow mountain in the South Keys parking lot is nearly melted away, the pigeons are cooin’ up a racket on my balcony and crews start unloading trucks to build the stages that transforms Ottawa into a summertime Festival City once again. If the O-town festival

Art and Music come alive at the National Art Gallery Soiree

 Ottawa Life’s Festival City Series is back! We'll provide a unique look at some of your favourite events. We’ll go beyond the music with artist interviews, volunteer profiles, concert reviews and spotlights on the tastes, sights and sounds of the festival season.  Your city! Your festivals and events! Like a good sunscreen,

The Darcys Embrace Self-Awareness

 Ottawa Life’s Festival City Series is back! We'll provide a unique look at some of your favourite events. We’ll go beyond the music with artist interviews, volunteer profiles, concert reviews and spotlights on the tastes, sights and sounds of the festival season.  Your city! Your festivals and events! Like a good sunscreen,

Ottawa Life Wants to Get YOU Free Fallin’ Into Bluesfest!

 Ottawa Life’s Festival City Series is back! We'll provide a unique look at some of your favourite events. We’ll go beyond the music with artist interviews, volunteer profiles, concert reviews and spotlights on the tastes, sights and sounds of the festival season.  Your city! Your festivals! Like a good sunscreen, Ottawa Life

20 Years On and Still Living on the Fringe

 Ottawa Life’s Festival City Series is back! We'll provide a unique look at some of your favourite events. We’ll go beyond the music with artist interviews, volunteer profiles, concert reviews and spotlights on the tastes, sights and sounds of the festival season.  Your city! Your festivals! Like a good sunscreen, Ottawa Life

Juno Awards to Make Historic Return to Ottawa

 The city is buzzing with anticipation for the JUNO Awards returning to Ottawa in 2017 as part of the country’s 150th anniversary. The musical birthday bash will transform Ottawa into not just a festival city but a music city as the JUNO Week celebrations take place March 27th to April

Capital Pride!

 Despite the rain slicking the sidewalks on Bank Street, hundreds still ensured that this weather would include plenty of rainbows as they lined the street for today’s Capital Pride Parade. This being the 31st Anniversary of the festival, Ottawa Life takes a look back at Pride past along with today’s events through

Sloan to Play Classic Album in Full at Arboretum Festival

 Sloan is back again for a little mid-90’s time traveling. In 2012 the band revisited their classic album Twice Removed with a triple-LP rerelease as well as playing it in full on tour. This year, the Juno winning One Chord to Another is getting the same treatment. Formed in 1991

Buskerfest Celebrates 25 Years

 All photos by Andre Gagne. “You look like the professional type,” the man calling himself the Pyromancer said, his wide-eyed gaze falling upon the camera slung over my shoulder. I admit, there may have been a tinge of madness in the look though what else might one expect from a guy

Two festivals combine for an evening of Ukrainian music

 All photos by Andre Gagne. September, 1891. With little more than what could be carried the first immigrants from the Ukraine left their homeland with all the fears, worry and wonder that accompany the following of hopeful dreams in an uncertain time. Hearing about the free land of Canada, a

Time Travelin’ Band! Fogerty brings us back to Woodstock and beyond

 All photos by Andre Gagne. Note: Images are from John Fogerty's 2011 Bluesfest performance. “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” Who else but John Fogerty? As the ponchos came off and the umbrellas went down last night at RBC Bluesfest, it was perhaps no surprise to one of this festival’s biggest crowds

Bluesfest’s poster child

 Photos by Andre Gagne. Poster images supplied by Dave O'Malley and Aerographics. At 65-years-old Dave O’Malley is hardly a kid but for the last 22 years he’s been the poster child of RBC Bluesfest. Should you pass through the Canadian War Museum you can take a trip down festival memory

Ottawa Life Wants to Send YOU to RBC Bluesfest!

 Get funky with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on July 15 WE HAVE A WINNER. Out of 150 entrants one of you and a friend are going to Bluesfest. Announcement to come once we confirm the winner. Ottawa Life's Festival City Series wants to send you and a guest to RBC

Escapade festival Stylz

 It's year six and Ottawa’s popular Escapade festival continues to host some of the biggest names in electronic dance music. Deadmau5, Zeds Dead, Mark Knight and Tiesto have all headlined the festival in the past. However, along with the music and its various sub-genres, the EDM culture also brings with it

Festival City Contest: Win Tickets to the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival’s After Dark Series

 Soil & "Pimp" Sessions will show you why they are masters of Japanese "death jazz" on July 2. Photos provided by TD Ottawa Jazz Festival.  The 24th Street Wailers take to the After Dark stage on June 26. UPDATE: Huge congrats to the winners of our first Festival City contest. Ben Sandy Bolduc,

Project SoundCheck Seeking a Safer Festival Season

 ABOVE: Kira-Lynn Ferderber, Project SoundCheck trainer and former team lead. (Photos by Andre Gagne) June 1, 2016: it is reported that 26 women have come forward with claims of being sexually assaulted or harassed at a popular music festival in Darmstadt, Germany. Three arrests are made. Earlier this year, Swedish