Join one of these first

Local associations worth your membership

Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA)

The home-building and renovation crowd: monthly breakfast events, spring & summer golf tournaments, the Housing Design Awards, and the HOWL women-in-homebuilding series. The breakfasts are the best networking-per-hour in the city. Find them at gohba.ca.

Ottawa Construction Association (OCA)

Commercial and trade contractors: education courses year-round and the annual OCA Construction Symposium & Trade Show each spring at the EY Centre — builders, suppliers and buyers in one room. Details at oca.ca.

BNI & local referral groups

Structured weekly referral networking. One plumber, one electrician, one renovator per chapter — which means your trade's seat might be open. Best ROI for service trades that live on referrals.

Mark the calendar

Shows where homeowners come to you

Ottawa Home shows (spring & fall)

The Ottawa Home + Garden Show (spring) and Ottawa Fall Home Show put you in front of thousands of homeowners actively planning projects. A modest booth plus a good follow-up system beats a big booth with no follow-up, every time.

OCA Symposium & Trade Show

Annual, spring, EY Centre. Even as a visitor: suppliers, builders and subcontractor relationships in one afternoon.

Worth the drive: Toronto

The Buildings Show (December) is Canada’s biggest construction event; CMPX is the national HVACR & plumbing expo. Go once a year to see where the industry is heading before your competitors do.

Free playbook

How to work a trade show (without wasting it)

Set one number before you go: conversations that end with a phone number in your pocket. Ten beats a hundred business cards handed out
Text every contact the same evening — “Good meeting you at the show” — while everyone else waits a week and gets forgotten
Bring your calendar, not your brochure: book the estimate on the spot
Photograph your booth conversations (with permission) — a month of social content in one day
Walk the competitors’ booths: their pitch, their pricing sheet, their weaknesses — it’s all public that day

Know an event we should list? Tell us at info@packedagency.ca — this page is updated as the Ottawa calendar moves.

The Packed Bulletin

One email a month. Worth opening.

Rebates, Google rule changes, lead-cost data and one tactic to try — in plain English, for Ottawa trades. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Where Ottawa contractors actually meet.