Fine weather, an eclectic program and strong support from passholders made the 2026 edition of CityFolk the biggest iteration in the three-decade history of the event formerly known as the Ottawa Folk Festival.
The outdoor music festival ran Sept. 16-20 in a new site on the grounds of the RA Centre on Riverside Drive , about four kilometres from its former home at Lansdowne Park, which is now under construction.
Early estimates indicate 35,000 to 40,000 people attended the event over the five days, said festival director Mark Monahan, a turnout that wouldn’t have been possible at Lansdowne’s Great Lawn.
“The (RA Centre) site is bigger so it allowed us to set things up properly with lots of room. That was a big advantage,” Monahan said in an interview. “Honestly this edition of CityFolk would not have been able to fit at Lansdowne.”
With a mainstage program that ranged from rock legends Alice Cooper and Sex Pistols to TikTok sensations Cameron Whitcomb and Stella Lefty, the crowd spanned demographics, often including entire families spread out on blankets.
At the same time, the secondary Westside stage, under a huge tent, kept the folk fans happy with performances by the likes of Pokey Lafarge, the White Buffalo and Amigo The Devil, and mostly managed to avoid sound bleed.
Monahan said more people bought full-event passes this year and attended multiple nights, resulting in consistent crowds each night.
The best-attended night was Sept. 17, when Whitcomb, the 23-year-old B.C. dynamo, took charge of the main stage with his uplifting brand of country-pop, punctuating it with backflips.
Both Whitcomb and Australia’s Steph Strings said their CityFolk audiences were the biggest Canadian shows of their careers. Many of the acts remarked on the beauty of Ottawa and the pleasant weather, despite the light chill after dark.
The members of Of Monsters and Men said they walked to a nice neighbourhood called the Glebe, a name the Icelanders seemed to find hilarious, while Stella Lefty and her mom heard there was a mall nearby and found themselves shopping at Billings Bridge.
In all, Monahan said the venue worked well and feedback from patrons was positive. It was never intended to be a permanent move, he added, but CityFolk will return to the RA Centre, at least for two more years.
“Our initial plan was to go (to RA Centre) for at least three years, and then make a judgment call after that,” said the executive director of CityFolk and its big-sister festival, Bluesfest.
But he also said it’s unclear how much space will be left for a festival after the construction of the new arena at Lansdowne Park, which encroaches on the Great Lawn where CityFolk took place.
“We don’t have a final verdict on the Lansdowne situation,” Monahan said, noting the uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future of CityFolk. “We don’t know how much space there will be.”
