I was there from Saturday AM till about 8:30PM Monday (when I moved on to a house party where the music - Middle Eastern, Northern European, American Jazz, and whatnot - continued for several more hours). As others have said, Folklife is often most enjoyable when you don't plan out your itinerary too much -- or at least don't feel obliged to stick to it when you find a delightful diversion en route to what you have circled in the program. ;-)   (I wrote a 25th-Anniversary Folklike tribute song for the big celebration showcase that year - 1985 or 1986 - which has some lines about that. I'll post the song elsewhere, if I haven't already done that.)

I haven't officially been on the program since 1986, mostly because they keep moving the application deadline forward. (Now it seems like Folklife is barely over before you have to have your application in, complete with commercially produced CD of the kind of music you'll be performing.) But the Seattle Song Circle gang had a sing-along stage -- WITH a mic and amp to compensate for the high white noise level in background -- on Saturday afternoon, and I participated there, both on and (mostly) off stage. There were many other sing-alongs on the program (Gospel, Beatles, Woody Guthrie songs, etc.) in addition to a MUCH wider area of participatory dance floors than there were 10 years ago.   

And I've become a semi-regular at John Ross's band scrambles. (If you've never done one, you really should try it.) This year I was in bands for the String Band Scramble on Sat. and the Klezmer Band Scramble on Mon. (with my traditional klezmer instrument, the flat-top Martin guitar). I didn't make it to the Celtic one on Sunday but John tells me Paddy Graber - recovering from his brush with the reaper last year - was back up there doing a jig in his usual good form.    My bands won, both times. (If John pops his head in here, he can tell you about the lovely parting gif ... er ... prizes we won.) ;-) Of course on Monday we put our accordion, guitar, tambourine, voices, and two clarinets into a single band. And on Sat. we (the participants and audience) unanimously decided to call it a tie and give everyone one of John's suitable-for-framing-or-something certificates. The rain and the rather remote location (coupled with an error in the program) really did keep our numbers down but it was fun, as usual.

I enjoyed Stewart and Bob's Songs Of The Northwest panel a lot (despite freezing my arse off along with those on stage).   Linda Allen's song about two polar-opposite women suffragists (what's-her-name and Mae) was especially delightful. Loved hearing some of Mary Garvey's wonderful songs.

You can hear clips from the CD here Songs Of the Pacific Northwest

My volunteer work included being assistant stage manager for a while at the Fiddler's Green stage, where bluegrass music was the focus (with some Celtic and oldtimey, etc., thrown into the mix on occasion.) Wonderful performances there, and this stage often turned into a kind of pick-up band stage, with jammers from nearby Bluegrass Hill and/or from other bands being invited to come up on stage with their instruments.

There was also a lot of excellent Middle Eastern music (I especially enjoyed a band called "Hejira"), as well as ethnic music from all over the world.

I'm glad the drummers were given the confines of a tent, but they really need to be moved to a peripheral area, e.g., the area where the band scrambles were this year and last, because they really do drown out many stages around them and on sunny days you can get high just trying to walk through the crowds in the drumming area.