You have to forgive us Americans. Sometimes we get the notion that we're the only ones around. We call Washington, Oregon and Idaho "the Northwest," in spite of the fact that there is an awful lot of territory to the northwest of The Northwest, including an entire state and portions of a whole 'nother country. (It gets worse. There is a Northwestern University in Illinois, founded back in the days when Illinois actually was the Northwest.)

At any rate "Northwest Folklife Festival" is the official name of the festival, Most people around here just call it "Folklife," as in "Are you going to Folklife?" "Nah, nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." As I recall there is often a fair amount of sea shanty music performed there, along with almost every kind of folk music you can name from all over the globe. (And storytelling, exhibits, dance and all kinds of cool stuff.) The best way to find out what's going on with them is to check out their webpage at http://nwfolklife.org/.