RBC Bluesfest kicking off Thursday with opening headliner Shania Twain

Canadian superstar Shania Twain will kick of the 2023 edition of RBC Bluesfest on Thursday.

Twain leads a group of homegrown Canadian talent that’s taking the stage this year including Billy Talent, Alan Doyle and Amos the Transparent — who are from Ottawa.

Opening night is shaping up to be so busy, organizers decided to stop selling individual tickets.

“You can still buy a full festival passport if you want to spend the better part of two weeks hanging out with us — and we’d love to have you down there — but just for capacity reasons we’ve stopped selling individual day tickets for that day,” says festival spokesperson Joe Reilly. “It’s pretty exciting for us to started with such a big bang.”

The nine-day festival also features big names like Pitbull, Death Cab for Cutie, Mumford & Sons, Weezer and the Foo Fighters, who drew one the largest crowds in the festival’s history back in 2018.

And tonight is going to be busy, organizers have said they’ve stopped selling individual tickets to Shania, due to capacity, so you can expect major crowds.

This year’s list of Bluesfest performers:

July 6: Shania Twain, Orville Peck, bbno$, Dax, Son Little, John Németh, Brea Lawrenson, J.C, Melissa Lamm, Mikhail Laxton, Mimi O’Bonsawin.

July 7: Weezer, Thundercat, Billy Talent, PUP, Tank & The Bangas, Jupiter & Okwess, Southern Avenue, Digging Roots, Emily Jean Flack, Melo Griffith, The Jesse Greene Band.

July 8: BADBADNOTGOOD, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings ft. Daniel Lanois and Suzie Vinnick, Raul Midón, Sugaray Rayford, The Texas Horns, Aspects, Nesrallah Artuso Project, Steven Taetz.

July 9: Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara, Alan Doyle, Bran Van 3000, Moonlight Benjamin, Jack Barksdale, Youngtree & The Blooms, Guy Belanger, East Coast Experience, Emmanuelle Querry.

July 12: Foo Fighters, AJR, White Reaper, MONOWHALES, Black Joe Lewis, Lime Cordiale, My Son The Hurricane, River City Junction.

July 13: Mumford & Sons,The War On Drugs, Declan McKenna, Sudan Archives, Cam Kahin, Lloyd Spiegel, Loviet, Amos The Transparent, Angelina Hunter Trio, Ash Ravens, Avery Raquel.

July 14: FLETCHER, Fleet Foxes, Allison Russell; Rich Aucoin; Sauce Boss; Sussex; Amanda Jordan; Pony Girl.

July 15: Pitbull, Ludacris, Julia Jacklin, HOROJO Trio, TJ Wheelr, Abby Stewart, Drew Nelson, GRAE, Joe McDonald.

July 16: Koffee, Miss Emily, Eazy Finesse, Megan Jerome, and Steph La Rochelle.

Expect big crowds and road closures around LeBreton Flats while Bluesfest is underway.

Cycling and public transit are likely the best options, as there will be free bike lockups available and transit is free with your Bluesfest ticket.

Pimisi Station will be open and fully operational, so you can take LRT straight to the festival, and when there’s the end of the night surge, OC Transpo will have buses available to run westbound to Tunney’s Pasture.

For more on RBC Bluesfest, go to www.ottawabluesfest.ca