As Cornwall works to elevate its profile as a tourism destination, a local hotel is organizing its own “hospitality-first” music festival later this month.
After a successful inaugural event in 2025, the Dev Hotel and Conference Centre is bringing back DevFest, a two-day music festival scheduled to take place on its 70-acre waterfront property from June 26 to 27.
Festival organizer Ian Bentley, who also serves as the hotel’s general manager, originally came up with the idea. It was an unorthodox approach to attracting visitors that he said has paid off.
“We got the green light last year and, in the pouring rain, we had 2,000 people show up,” said Bentley. “We managed to have a successful event, so we thought, okay, let’s do it again. We might have something here.”
According to Bentley, tourism has become a bigger priority for the city in recent years.
“We’re often an afterthought because we’re so close to Upper Canada Village,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is reinvent ourselves with the arts, we’re trying to reinvent ourselves with festivals, we’re drawing attention to the national stage. What we’re trying to do in Cornwall is educate eastern Ontario. This is a great place to come and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.”
On the arts side, he said the city is using its main venues — the Aultsville Theatre and the historic Port Theatre — to attract year-round traffic by bringing in more popular musical acts.
In terms of infrastructure, Bentley said the $350-million Great Wolf Lodge has been a major topic of conversation. Bentley said that if it goes ahead, the indoor waterpark resort in the Cornwall Business Park could inject more life into the city and trigger more activity.
In the meantime, Bentley said he hopes to make DevFest a popular summer attraction for years to come.
Instead of muddy campgrounds, Bentley said the idea was to offer a more luxurious getaway, where guests can walk from their hotel room to the stage and visit the spa in between sets.
For the hotel, Bentley said it’s all about highlighting the facility and the team.
“We are hospitality experts and I want to showcase our industry-leading hospitality,” he said. “You enjoy this incredible concert festival and the event itself while we take care of the little things, making sure things are comfortable. It’s a VIP experience like no other, not just a tent. We’re trying to go the extra mile to meet the needs of the customer and make it an event driven by hospitality.”
This year’s festival will feature Ottawa’s Angelique Francis Band on Friday and dual headliners The Trews and The Strumbellas on Saturday.
From a logistics perspective, Bentley said juggling the responsibilities of both a general manager and festival organizer is a tall order. When hotels host big events such as concerts, conferences or conventions, it’s typically a third-party organizer doing the heavy lifting. Not so for DevFest, Bentley said.
“I don’t think anybody that’s not in the industry really understands the work that goes into it and the amount of expense it takes to put this on,” he said.
Still, he said the effort is worth it: “It’s a risk, but the risk for us stems from education. We want people to come see our facility. We want people to come to Cornwall. We almost use it as an open house.”
Between the two days, Bentley said the festival expects to bring in more than 3,000 people this year, including local and drive-in traffic as well as hotel guests.
With 529 rooms on site, Bentley said the event is also more intimate than other festivals, but added that its size gives it a boutique feel.
“It’s always going to be a smaller event, it’s never going to be 10,000 people,” he said. “But we don’t want that. It becomes too convoluted and, all of a sudden, the hospitality is gone. What we want is to have this boutique feel that people can escape to for a weekend and they’ve got great music.”
Bentley said he hopes to make DevFest an annual tradition, adding that last year’s feedback has solidified the hotel’s confidence in the event going forward.
“Who knows what next year will bring?” he said. “If this is successful, then there could be bigger names. It’s a huge task to put something like this on and we’re lucky to have great partners and to be so close to Ottawa and Montreal.”
In 2022, what was then the Nav Centre owned by Nav Canada was sold to Devcore Group, becoming the Dev Centre. The Nav Centre, completed in 1979, was primarily a training facility but evolved to provide conference and food services as well as emergency room and board services.
