Festival Story:

The Festival is about great music and good spirits. Kids get in free, and they’ll love the family area, featuring theatre, magic and music. Stroll through the international craft market displaying the work of independent vendors; visit the record tent to take home artists’ music; have a cold beverage in the tree-shaded beer garden; enjoy superb food from around the world from our concessionaires. From plate recycling to secured bicycle parking and covered viewing areas for the disabled, it’s a comfortable site for all. There’s plenty of shade, a relaxed atmosphere (what other festival allows you to bring your own picnic?) and more musical diversity than you can imagine.

You like blues? We’ve got it. Prefer celtic or traditional music? We’ve got plenty of that too, plus roots, world music, cutting-edge sounds, bluegrass, funk, country, hip-hop, dub, old-timey, and more. See artists in concert on the evening mainstage or 6 other more intimate stages, where sessions bring together musicians in unpredictable and magical collaborations that can become celtic kitchen parties, country hoe-downs, Southern Baptist tent revivals, singer/songwriter song swaps, world music collaborations or all-out blues jams.

Festival Events:

Lineup 2011:

• Matt Andersen
• Joseph Arthur
• C.R. Avery
• Balkan Beat Box
• Geoff Berner
• Blind Pilot
• Blue Rodeo
• Bonnie “Prince” Billy
• Braids
• Jon Brooks
• T. Buckley
• Cadence Weapon
• Caravan Palace
• Chic Gamine
• City and Colour
• Coeur de Pirate
• Cutest Kitten Ever
• Dark Dark Dark
• David Wax Museum
• Kris Ellestad
• Elvis Bossa Nova
• Fada Dance
• The Felice Brothers
• The Flatlanders
• David Francey
• Nanci Griffith
• The Head and the Heart
• The Herbaliser
• Hollow Brethren
• Imaginary Cities
• Inhabitants
• Elisapie Isaac
• Harrison Kennedy
• k.d. lang and The Siss Boom Bang
• Lightning Dust
• Raghu Lokanathan
• Jez Lowe
• Catherine MacLellan
• Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk
• Matt Masters and the Gentlemen of the Rodeo
• Mighty Popo
• Minotaurs
• Jim Moray
• New Country Rehab
• Morgan O’Kane
• The Once
• Painting with Ella
• Joel Plaskett
• Portland Cello Project
• Punch Brothers
• Raleigh
• Ernest Ranglin
• Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
• Carl Hancock Rux
• Martha Scanlan
• SoCalled
• SociaLybrium
• Spiro
• Buffy Saint-Marie
• The Swamp Ward Orchestra
• Ti-Coca & Wanga-Négès
• Patrick Watson
• Emily Jill West
• Jenny Whiteley
• Wilson, Swarbrick and Gaughan
• Yemen Blues
• Yohimbe Brothers featuring Bernie Worrell
• Yo La Tengo

Practical Info:

Venue:

• Prince’s Island Park
  Located in downtown Calgary, north of the Eau Claire Market footbridge.

Greening initiatives:

• This past year we instituted our SEEQ policies to formally develop procedures that focus on limiting our footprint at our beautiful downtown park location. The Calgary Folk Music Festival is committed to walking our talk: we want to make sure our environmental footprint is minimized, and our cultural impact is maximized. Our dream and our goal is to be part of leading-edge creativity and results around ethical and sustainable business as usual. As we began articulating our vision of ethical sustainability, we recognized four guiding principles that already go into decision-making at all levels of the organization. And although emphasis on each of the pillars is flexible, all four form the basis of our philosophy.
  
  • Social responsibility—We acknowledge and embrace our existence within the context of Calgary, Canada and the global community. We believe in the power of music to create growth and dialogue between people, and we wish to work from this strength and passion, to reach out to the vast diversity of the Calgary, Canadian and global village, building bridges and enhancing accessibility between groups and individuals wherever possible.
  • Economics—We wish to be a self-sustaining entity, charging a fair and affordable price for our service. We wish to respect other organizations and individuals, paying a fair price for their labour and goods.
  • Environment—We deeply value the natural environment, and are committed to doing our best to reduce our ecological footprint in whatever ways we can. We wish to provide an environment for the festival that does not create a burden for the city in terms of environmental impact, and we strive to create and use appropriate technology to achieve this end.
  • Quality—Music is our passion, as is community. We wish to continue to successfully bring the music of “folks” from around the world to our fair city, during our festival and year round, celebrating diversity, independence, creativity, excellence and the exchange of music and ideas. For feeding over 1300 volunteers plus 9 000 daily audience members, we have instituted a long-running plate recycling program, plus on-site composting and beer cup recycling. Our concessionaires are required to use compostable cutlery. We operate on green power through the wind power program and carbon credits with our provincial energy company, and we have free, secure bike parking.