Confederation Park is set to undergo major rehabilitation work next summer, displacing a number of the city's staple annual events.
Events that use the park at Laurier Avenue and Elgin Street as a central location will be forced to look for temporary locations while the park is under renovation next year. This includes the Ottawa Jazz Festival and Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend.
The National Capital Commission is closing Confederation Park to rehabilitate the dying vegetation, said NCC senior communications manager Jean Wolff.
Renovations at the park have been rumoured since last summer, but event organizers who use the park were officially notified two weeks ago, according to Jazz Festival executive producer Catherine O'Grady.
O'Grady said planning is already underway for the 2015 festival, and the Jazz Fest team is trying to find alternate arrangements with a hand from the NCC.
The NCC will work with the city to minimize inconvenience to our valued event organizers and park users, and to find alternative options in a timely fashion," Wolff said in an email.
O'Grady said the NCC has been "extremely helpful" so far. She hopes it will allow Jazz Fest to use Major's Hill Park because it is one of the few central locations big enough to hold a music festival.
O'Grady said the organizers want to avoid spreading the festival across the city and forcing visitors to travel far from one show to the next.
If they manage to get Major's Hill Park, O'Grady said it would hold the main stage while the smaller stages would be set up at Festival Plaza at city hall and the National Arts Centre.
"It's a bit more difficult, but it certainly wouldn't be as difficult as sending us out to Britannia or Hog's Back or something like that," O'Grady said.
Even if an alternate location is found, O'Grady said the change is going to make planning Jazz Fest more of a challenge, since it has been held at the same place for 30 years.
"We know Confederation Park like the back of our hands," said O'Grady, who has been working with Jazz Fest for 18 years.
Between figuring out the new infrastructure and understanding the acoustics of the festival's new location, O'Grady said the organizers are in for a steep learning curve.
However, she said there are always challenges involved with planning outdoor events, and they've had to keep up with changes to NCC land in the past.
While this is the biggest relocation the festival has faced, O'Grady said it's just about working collaboratively with the NCC and other groups, and rolling with the punches.