The Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest is an annual outdoor music festival that takes place each July in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. While ostensibly focused on blues, the festival has increasingly showcased mainstream pop and rock acts in recent years. In 2002, the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest won the Best Event Award from the Ottawa Tourism and Convention Authority and in 2003 the organization received the Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) award for arts education from the Memphis Blues Foundation. Mark Monahan is a past recipient of the Toronto Blues Society’s Blues with a Feeling award.