From July 26-29, Calgary hosted one of the most celebrated music festivals of the year, the Calgary Folk Music Festival. Since 1980, the festival has proved itself a great place to enjoy great music, experience a variety of foods, shop, and hang out.
For those looking for volunteer experience, the festival offers fantastic volunteer opportunities; not only do volunteers get free admission into the festival, but they also get free access to festival-related parties, and free meals for the entire weekend.
The festival’s website explains, “…the Calgary Folk Music Festival embraces a singularly Canadian festival style, earning a glowing reputation for programming that welcomes music from around the corner and the globe, bringing together marquee artists, local favourites, history-makers and innovators to Calgary for a broad-ranging vision of folk with an edge, and a festival with a wry, get ’er done attitude.” This description sums up the festival, as a unique cultural and musical event in one.
What the Festival Offers:
This year the festival featured a range of performers on the festival’s expanse of stages. 2012’s performers included Dan Mangan, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Trampled by Turtles, Chris Isaak, Randy Newman, and more.
Every year the festival is held at Prince’s Island park, creating a beautiful setting to listen to music or to enjoy a stroll. Those seeking shelter or further entertainment aside from the festival will be pleased to know Eau Claire Market is minutes away.
That being said, the festival is by no means lacking in entertainment. It is quite common to stay on festival grounds throughout the entire event. Many of the food trucks which roam around the city collected on festival grounds, while dessert places like Cruffs (House of Cream Puffs) and Modern Jelly Donuts offered a range of their mouth-watering flavours. Coffee-lovers were also appeased; Calgary’s own Phil and Sebastian set up a tent housing their gourmet beverages.
For shopping the festival set up an entire “alley” for festival-goers to wander through. A variety of vendors offered a collection of items, including temporary spray tatoos, pottery, jewelry, cloths, yarn and feather extentions.
Going to the Festival:
Due to the festival’s popularity this year tickets were sold out for the entire weekend. For those who want to attend the festival next year, the best way to ensure attendance is to buy tickets online. Both one day or whole weekend passes are sold. If the festival is too pricy, apply to volunteer and get in for free!
This year the festival introduced it’s own app, “MyFolkFest.” Once the app is downloaded the user can browse through the Folk Fest schedule and add the events they want to attend to their personalized MyFolkFest schedule. This way, festival-goers could easily keep track of the events they wanted to go to and the event details. Regardless, the most important item in any festival-goer’s bag is a lawn chair or blanket, to relax on and enjoy the music.