Brucie, I'm glad to see you mention the Edmonton Folk Festival.
It was once the largest folk festival in North America and may still hold that honor.
The event is run on a budget of just under $3,000,000 with a daily attendance of 20,000.
Weekend passes for the 4 day festival have been sold out for months.
(source: Edmonton Journal 2004-07-24)                

Edmonton has one of the deepest river valleys of any major city in the North America,
the banks of which supply a natural theater setting. Folkies bring their own tarps,
sit on the sloping banks and enjoy the music from the stage many feet below.

What makes it a success?
Performers, Management, Location, Date, Musical Variety, Volunteers
and probably some intangibles.

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Information snippets copied from: www.edmontonfolkfest.org

Where: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in beautiful downtown Gallagher Park.

When: August 5-8, 2004

Our Musical Philosophy
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Our Mandate - promote folk music in its diversity

Our goal - showcase the best celtic, bluegrass, blues, gospel, roots, world beat and singer/songwriters, with some country and r & b thrown in, that we can book from anywhere in the world.

It's a festival - This Festival combines the talents of quality folk music artists who share their diverse origins and musical traditions. Sessions (workshops) enable performers to jam together in front of an audience. The result is a banquet of music not seen at regular concerts. We have never focused on a few "headliners" with supporting "warm-up acts".

It's a balancing act - We try to blend all these music traditions to offer something for every musical taste and to create interesting mainstage line-ups and sessions where diverse styles can be shared. We strive to achieve the following:

- 50% Canadian artists
- balancing of singer-songwriters, acoustic/electric, male & female artists
- familiar artists and not well known artists, we primarily showcase seasoned performers as opposed to new artists
- repeat artists (some patrons could hear their favorite act every year!) and first-time artists

Additional issues we deal with in booking the line-up

1. Cost - The cost of well-known performers is escalating rapidly making some performers no longer financially accessible. We work with a fixed budget from low ticket prices and a limit on the number of tickets. Too much spent on 1 artist means reducing the depth and range of other artists we present. We book over 65 artists who provide about 129 hours of performance.

2. Availability - This is a prime issue. Performer schedules may preclude their coming to Edmonton in August in a given year. Some performers do not do festivals. Some performers will not come to Canada. Some performers cannot come to Canada. Some take their holidays in August.