Ottawa Bluesfest
March 25, 2020 : Over the past two weeks, we’ve heard from many of you about COVID-19. We’re committed to keeping you informed about our plans and providing information as we have it.
At the heart of the live music industry are all the artists, crew members, venue workers, and behind-the-scenes workers who make the magic happen. These are the people who will feel a significant impact if events do not proceed. With the outdoor festival season ramping up, many tours, shows and festivals will be significantly affected by the pandemic.
Our hearts go out to our festival colleagues and other events who have already been forced to cancel or postpone. These are challenging and unprecedented times. We are all doing our best to figure out where all this is going. Right now, you are the best chance we have at making this summer festival season happen! Please do your part to follow physical distancing measures and follow the advice of our government & health officials! If everyone can buckle down and stay inside NOW, we have a better shot at stopping the spread of this virus, so we can come together as a community and celebrate at #RBCBluesfest2020.
At this point, we still hope to proceed with the festival, while closely following the guidance of the health authorities. Should the festival need to be postponed or cancelled, rest assured that ticketholders will be entitled to a full refund. We are in the process of making contingency plans and we will attempt to post a weekly update here.
March 16th, 2020 : In light of ongoing developments with COVID-19, we understand that many events are being cancelled. Being a July festival, RBC Bluesfest is still outside that window of time, and we currently plan to move forward with the festival. We will continue to follow the advice of health authorities and we will post updates as they become available. Following the lead of other Ottawa businesses, most of our staff are working from home, and we are currently not accepting visitors to our Festival House office.
March 10th, 2020: Across the globe, several organizations have cancelled conferences and events due to concerns about the COVID-19 virus.
The health and safety of our community is paramount. RBC Bluesfest is closely monitoring the situation and will carefully follow the recommendation of public health experts. At this time, RBC Bluesfest preparations are continuing as planned, in order to stage the event from July 9th to 19th, 2020.
The RBC Bluesfest team is currently reviewing its health and safety protocols to ensure it is adopting best practices. We are in contact with Ottawa Public Health and will continue to monitor their daily updates at: https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/
