FOLK FEST SHINES ON
Paola Galindo and daughter Talia Cardona, 3, soak up the music and sun on the final day of the calgary folk music festival on sunday. The event was a near sellout.
Calgary Folk Music Festival officials were reporting “solid” but not sellout crowds for most of the four-day festivities at Prince’s Island Park, suggesting they will be less than 3,000 short of being a complete sellout. As of Sunday afternoon, tickets were continuing to be snapped up by latecomers hoping to catch the mainstage acts Shovels & Rope, Neko Case and Bahamas.
That puts it roughly in line with last year’s numbers, although an official tally and breakdown hadn’t been done yet. Thursday and Friday nights were 1,000 or so short of a sellout, while Saturday was full. A sellout is roughly 12,000 to 13,000 people.
As of Sunday afternoon, the festival was about 1,000 tickets from a sellout.
“We haven’t finished selling (Sunday) and walk-up traffic has been really steady,” said Sara Leishman, executive director of the Calgary Folk Music Festival. “So I’m guessing we’ll be a little bit better.”
While Saturday’s lineup was certainly stellar, ending with a blistering set by Indigenous electronic, hip-hop act A Tribe Called Red, it’s also the day that Calgarians tend to show up, regardless of the acts.
Buoyed by mostly good weather — with the exception of a brief period of rain and thunderstorms on Thursday — the festival was deemed a success in its 39th year.
Artistically, the festival offered its usual array of eclectic acts over four days, including artists that artistic director Kerry Clarke has had on her wish list for years.
“I’ve been trying for 15 years to get Joe Jackson, I’ve been for five to get Shovels & Rope,” Clarke says.
“It’s the great thing about our long history and the relationships we built, certainly on the artistic end but all relationships that the organization has built ... we stick it out long enough on all levels.”
This year’s headliners included Toronto indie-pop act Alvvays, Jackson on Friday and A Tribe Called Red on Saturday.
This year also provided opportunities for a number of local artists to shine, including Tom Phillips and the D.T.s, Mariel Buckley, Clinton St. John, Copperhead and Saturday night main-stagers Reuben and the Dark. (They are from Calgary but are now based in Toronto.)
“We try to get people who can swim with the big fish and who are really ready to take the next step, who I really want to be seen,” Clarke says.
While it is tough times for some arts organizations in the city — the Calgary International Children’s Festival announced it was dissolving after 32 years due to a “challenging economy” — Leishman says the folk festival continues to be financially healthy.
“We’ve always run lean and that’s always worked to our advantage,” she said. “We’ve always relied on our 1,850 volunteers to help us do what we do. We’ve been really mindful of our spending and grown in baby steps to ensure we are always a sustainable organization.”