Best Outdoor Festival,
Best Music Festival:
Vancouver Folk Music Festival
TheFestival.bc.ca
As we suffer through one of the soggiest Februarys in years, July may seem like a lifetime away (it’s really just over four months away, but that’s still a really long time when it’s pouring). If you're dreaming of sunny skies, warm ocean waters, and open-air music, go ahead and circle the weekend of July 15-17 now, because that’s when the 39th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival goes down at Jericho Beach Park.
It’s clear that you truly love and value this event, because you voted the venerable Vancouver Folk Music Festival both Best Music Festival and Best Outdoor Festival in our annual Best of the City poll. In a region that has become stacked and packed with outdoor festivals, many boasting heavy-duty headlining competition often awkwardly on the exact same weekend, that’s quite a pair of trophies you’ve bestowed upon the folk festival at the beach.
If you’ve been lucky enough to attend this festival in any one of the previous 38 years, it’s easy to understand why Folk Fest won your heart. It’s just so damn relaxing. Located in one of the most beautiful locations anywhere, under typically warm and sunny weather, the experience includes a live music soundtrack from around the world, lofting down upon you, while you gaze out with amazement at the spectacular views of the North Shore mountains, Burrard Inlet, and Howe Sound. Possibly best of all, you’re surrounded with a bunch of like-minded, mostly loving and caring people. It’s a multicultural utopia of sorts, a kind of best-case-scenario Vancouver.
I’ve had the good fortune of emceeing the festival for the last few years, and have had the distinct pleasure of seeing the look on musicians’ faces as they arrive at the site for the first time. One of my favourite memories was greeting a band from Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa. It was their first time in Canada, which by reputation, even in July, they expected to be cold and icy. Through my terrible French, I figured out that a few of them were interested in getting an up-close look at the beach, so I took them over myself. Following my lead, I coaxed them into the water for a swim. It was the first time they had ever been in an ocean in their lives. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when their nimble-toed hesitation switched to sheer, splashing delight in the warm waters off of Jericho Beach. They were swimming in the ocean! In Canada! Formidable! They didn’t drown! And I wasn’t fired!
Festival founder Mitch Podolak probably summed up the experience best on the Folk Fest website: “You enter a special world. You step outside normal society for three days and enjoy a totally non-alienating experience. What could be better?”
See you in July, and congratulations to the Folk Fest.
