Winnipeg Folk Fest thrives amid cruel summer for Canadian multi-artist events
CBC
Nineteen years ago, Gary Conway bought a ticket to the Winnipeg Folk Festival to hear singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn.
Conway intended to spend a single day at the festival in Birds Hill Provincial Park. He ended up attending every festival since 2006.
"We like just the energy and the spirit of the place. The vibe is just so open and comfortable and lets people be who they want to be for at least a brief period of the year," he said near the festival's main stage on Thursday, the opening night of the 50th annual event.
Conway is not alone. The Winnipeg Folk Festival is expected to draw at least 13,000 loyal, paying customers every day this weekend, which is a significant accomplishment during what's become a difficult environment for outdoor music festivals in Canada.
Rising fees for performers, a punishing U.S. exchange rate, reduced consumer spending and higher insurance charges have combined to pose existential threats to Canadian non-profit music festivals, forcing some to scale back their offerings and others to close down altogether.
The Regina Folk Music Festival went dark this summer after 55 years. Vancouver Island MusicFest in Courtenay, B.C., ceased operating after 30 seasons. Montreal's Festival sur le Canal is no more after 17.
Yet after a two-year COVID hiatus and two more difficult post-pandemic seasons that culminated in a rare financial loss in 2023, the Winnipeg Folk Festival is thriving in its 50th season, thanks in no small part to decades spent establishing the festival vibe itself as the main attraction, as opposed to the artists on the top of the lineup.
"We are a multi-generational festival. So we have folks who come from the time that they are babies up until they are great-grandparents. So we we have a lot of kind of renewal built into our audience, which we really benefit from," said Valerie Shantz, the festival's second-year executive director, speaking in an interview outside the festival's main gate on Wednesday.
Shantz acknowledged the Winnipeg Folk Festival doesn't try to compete for the most well-known performers, even during a 50th-anniversary season where some fans may have expected more big names.
"Our primary function is as a discovery festival, to turn people on to things that they don't know that they would necessarily want to hear, to watch musicians play with each other and just foster that kind of spirit of discovery and community, which is a big part of the experience here," Shantz said.
Programming the festival in this way allows the Winnipeg Folk Festival to avoid competing for major artists with U.S. events that can pay in greenbacks and corporate concert promoters that can offer performers higher paydays by booking them at multiple festivals.
Dauphin's Countryfest, Manitoba's second-largest outdoor music festival, doesn't have the same luxury. While the Winnipeg Folk Festival can draw large numbers of paying fans to listen to an eclectic range folk, roots, rock and pop performers, Countryfest is more confined in its artistic choices.
This has proven to a major financial headache for the festival held at the end of June on the north slope of Riding Mountain, explained Duane McMaster, the president of the non-profit festival.
He said the fees for major country artists have skyrocketed to the point where Countryfest has trouble landing the big names that used to allow the festival to attract upwards of 12,000 paying fans a day.
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