Why Two Big Ottawa Events Just Changed Addresses

Two of the biggest Ottawa events of the year are happening at addresses regular visitors have never driven to before. The Capital Fair, which opened Friday and runs through August 23, has set up at a new site on the corner of Albion Road and Rideau Road. CityFolk, the September music festival that spent years at Lansdowne Park, is moving to the front field of the RA Centre, south of downtown.

CBC News reported that the CityFolk relocation is down to construction at Lansdowne. That sounds like a footnote until you try to get there. Changing a festival site resets the parking, the bus route, the walk from the O-Train and the whole "we always park behind the arena" muscle memory a city builds up over a decade. If you already hold tickets, confirm the location before you leave the house.

Underneath the address shuffle is a genuinely stacked six weeks. Between now and the end of September, the region hosts a ten-day fair tied to a bicentennial, a folk festival closing with Alice Cooper and the Sex Pistols, and an animation festival marking its 50th edition after sifting through more than 2,800 submissions. Here's what's worth planning around, and what it'll cost you.

The Fair That Moved for a Bicentennial

The Capital Fair runs August 14 to 23 at its new Albion and Rideau Road grounds, and the organizers are hanging the 2026 edition on Ottawa's 200th anniversary. The programme is classic agricultural-fair fare: a midway, a demolition derby, a petting zoo and stunt dog shows. What's changed is the drive. The old habits point you the wrong way, so budget extra time on the first attempt.

It's also the longest continuous run of anything on the summer calendar. Most Ottawa festivals give you a weekend and vanish. Ten days means you can skip the Saturday crush entirely and go on a Tuesday evening, when the lineups for rides are a fraction of what they are at peak. That's the single most useful thing to know about fairs, and almost nobody acts on it.

CityFolk Leaves Lansdowne Behind

CityFolk lands September 16 to 20. The name still says folk; the lineup has drifted a long way from it. Alabama Shakes and the Marcus King Band open the Wednesday. Cameron Whitcomb and The White Buffalo take Thursday, Third Eye Blind and Switchfoot handle Friday, and Of Monsters and Men plus Angus & Julia Stone carry the Saturday. The closing night pairs Alice Cooper with a Sex Pistols lineup fronted by Frank Carter.

A new field also means new sightlines and a different crowd flow. Arriving early on the first night is worth more than usual this year, simply because nobody, including regulars, knows where the good spots are yet.

What the Ottawa Events Calendar Looks Like Now

The fireworks are done. Les Grands Feux du Casino Lac-Leamy wrapped its run on August 15 after a summer of Wednesday and Saturday pyromusical shows, with teams from Canada, France, Brazil and China competing before the Royal Pyrotechnie finale. If you missed it, that's a next-July problem. Everything below is still ahead of you.

The Rest of August

Deep Purple plays the Canadian Tire Centre on August 19. Public archaeological digs open to anyone at Leamy Lake Park and Philippe Lake on August 18 and 19 for Archaeology Month, which is a rare chance to touch the actual work instead of reading a placard. The 41st North Lanark Highland Games run August 22 in Almonte, about 45 minutes west.

Once September Starts

CityFolk takes September 16 to 20 at the RA Centre. The Ottawa International Animation Festival follows immediately, September 23 to 27. The two barely overlap, which is deliberate and means a determined person could do both without taking a week off work.

Fifty Years and 2,800 Films

The animation festival, running since 1976 and billed as North America's oldest, hit more than 2,800 submissions for its 50th edition. Screenings spread across the ByTowne Cinema, Arts Court, Club SAW, Strathcona Park, the National Arts Centre and the Ottawa Art Gallery, with awards handed out at the NAC on September 26. The Canadian cartoonist Seth drew this year's poster, and the jury is all-Canadian.

That submission number is the detail worth sitting with. A festival in a city of roughly a million people is pulling entries from animators worldwide, which is why the ByTowne fills with industry people every September and why passes move faster than tourists expect.

Doing All This Without Spending Much

A surprising amount of it costs nothing. The Wood Terrace Series at the National Arts Centre runs Tuesday through Thursday for free. Metcalfe Plaza programs art and music Thursday to Saturday. Yoga on Parliament Hill happens Wednesdays at noon. Farmers' markets run all week at Lansdowne, Main Street, Westboro, Barrhaven and Orléans, plus the Beechwood, Elgin and Parkdale markets, and the Hintonburg and Gloucester night markets.

For families, the Canadian Museum of Nature is free for children 17 and under this summer, and its Wild Colour exhibition is a solid rainy-afternoon fallback while the Wild Colour run lasts.

Do two things this week: check the Capital Fair's new address before you drive out, and decide now whether you want CityFolk or animation festival passes, because both sell into September and the venue change means fewer walk-up options than usual.