Mary McCaslin and Jim Ringer headline the inaugural Vancouver Folk Festival in Stanley Park, put on in part by organizers of the Winnipeg Folk Fest. Athough it rained on opening night, the weather cleared up for the weekend and an estimated 10,000 people came out for the weekend music fest to watch such acts as Stan Rogers, Pied Pear, Leon Redbone, Odetta, Leon Bibb, Roosevelt Sykes and John Hammond.
The festival was deemed enough of a success to try again and moved to Jericho Beach the following year, where the free-spirited, volunteer-driven music festival has called home the third weekend of July ever since.
“It required similar sophisticated skills to convince the park board to agree to the use of Jericho Beach Park for the second and subsequent festivals, writes Hal Wake on the festival’s website. “Managing the site to minimize disturbance for the neighbourhood, the wildlife and the environment, has been critical to the continued success of the Festival. Managing the political process has been no mean feat either.”
This year’s lineup of artists includes such acts as Frazey Ford, Hawksley Workman, Basia Bulat and Angélique Kidjo.
