Artistic director Kerry Clarke stressed the four-day event was still considered a success, but added there could be multiple reasons for the slight drop in attendance
Attendance was down slightly from last year at the Calgary Folk Music Festival, although Saturday was sold out at Prince’s Island Park.
It was too early to get final numbers, but artistic director Kerry Clarke predicted that attendance for Thursday, Friday and Sunday shows were likely down a few percentage points from 2023 when the event was 85 per cent sold out in total.
Clarke stressed the four-day event was still considered a success, but added there could be multiple reasons for the slight drop in attendance.
“We tend to think the Stampede is casting a bigger and bigger shadow,” she said. “They are 10 days before us and there are so many music festivals now associated with the Stampede, so it’s hard to get attention. People who love us know it’s a very different thing than a lot of the Stampede parties. But it’s almost like, after Stampede, Calgary is partied out.”
There is also always the possibility that festival-goers didn’t respond to the lineup as positively as those from past years. Certainly Saturday’s headliner, Philadelphia’s The Roots, were this year’s biggest marquee act and they did not disappoint, offering one of the most musically eclectic, entertaining and energetic main-stage sets in recent memory. Granted, Saturday nights are usually sold out, Clarke said, adding that a sold-out crowd is roughly 13,000 people.
On Thursday, the headliners were Montreal’s Leif Vollebekk and British singer-songwriter Ben Howard. On Friday, there was Toronto’s Wild Rivers, Canadian icons the Cowboy Junkies and Irish singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow.
“We try to find a combination of icons and upstarts,” Clarke said. “I define a headliner as someone who sells upwards of 1,200 tickets in town up to maybe 4,000 for the biggest names. You try to combine those. On Friday night, we kind of combined some mid-level headliners into one but maybe they all have the same audience. It’s so hard to say.”
On Sunday, the main-stage lineup started at 5:30 p.m. with British singer-songwriter Billie Marten followed by Oakland’s Miko Marks, fellow Oaklander and 2023 favourite Fantastic Negrito and R&B icon Booker T., who was bringing his Stax Revue to Prince’s Island Park.
“We’re not hurting and we’re doing well,” Clarke said. “But since we’re down a couple thousand maybe from last year, it’s hard to say. We do a little navel-gazing.”