Usain Bolt ran the 100-metre sprint in a record time of 9.58 seconds. To get front row seats for the main stage at Bluesfest, you’ll only need one minute one second.
For decades, a group of hardcore music-lovers have been racing and perfecting their methods to catch one of the best views amongst the crowd.
Donald Neville, a public servant with the Department of National Defence, has been going to Bluesfest for roughly 20 years. He started going to the festival on his own, but that changed after he began noticing the same people attending the same shows every year.
“Over the years, different people have joined our group and we’ve all just kind of morphed to each other,” Neville said. “It developed friendships.”
The core group has about 10 members, with a couple of others flock in and out during the festival. They’re always together to catch the main headliner on the RBC Stage, and security guards exchange inside jokes with several of the group’s veteran members.
The group is always there to catch the biggest names of the festival, such as Lainey Wilson, Shania Twain, Def Leppard and Sean Paul, which means they have to forego seeing other acts to secure their spots in front of the RBC Stage.
“In order to save your spot for the headliner, you have to be there for the first show,” Neville said. “If you think you’re going to show up at 8:30 p.m. and be front row, forget it, it’s not going to happen.”
Neville arranges to start his work day start earlier so he can leave the office around 3 p.m. and drive straight to the Canadian War Museum to try to catch a parking spot there. Then he’ll usually wait inside the museum, alongside other group members, until Bluesfest gates open at 5 p.m.
He always aims to be one of the first to get through security. To facilitate entry, he doesn’t bring a bag.
Some members of the group are already retired and can get right in front of the gates to begin the race to the RBC stage, a distance of about 250 metres. “There’s no real big secret behind it,” Neville said. “Having a network of friends that (can) be there at one or two in the afternoon to make sure they’re right at the front of the gate helps.
“It always kind of works out that we have enough room for our gang right up front.”
Jennifer Diotte, 48, and Julie Hanes, 63, met at a Bluesfest concert around 12 years ago and have been close friends ever since. “It was like, ‘I’ll meet you there tomorrow,’ and it never stopped,” Hanes said.
Wednesday evening marked Diotte’s first Bluesfest concert this year. In April 2025, she was diagnosed with bone cancer in her spine, and she spent the past month in the hospital while recovering from surgery. She was previously diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021.
“I’ve already missed five days and that really hurt,” she said. “Bluesfest is something that I look forward to every year. It’s my happy place.
“Music has saved my life a million times.”
Diotte’s first Bluesfest concert was about 14 years ago, after she first moved to Ottawa, while Hanes has been going since the very beginning at the festival’s original location in Major’s Hill Park.
The pair were introduced to Neville and other group members by sheer coincidence of standing near each other during concerts. In years past, Diotte and Hanes would line up as early as three hours before the gates opened to grab their spots.
“We’d be the first ones through the gate and I would give Julie all my stuff and run, and she would follow not too far behind,” Diotte said. “Now that it’s a big group of us, we all just run and whoever gets there stands with legs and arms open until the rest of us show up.”
Besides Hanes, whom she sees regularly, Diotte says the rest of the group tries to stay in contact throughout the year until Bluesfest comes around again.
“They’ve done whatever they can to support me and they’re always checking to make sure I’m good,” she said.
Hanes always buys her full festival pass the very first day tickets go on sale, and she books off work during Bluesfest so she can try to catch as many shows as possible. Bluefest usually takes place around her birthday, which is on July 4, so Hanes treats herself.
“That’s my gift to myself every year is the gift of music, Bluesfest,” she said.
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