18,000 campers???????? I hate to say that is hard to believe, but that is really hard to believe!    I would like to believe it because that would show that this music has a much larger audience than anyone gives it credit for.

Philly Folk draws about 20,000 people per year - and the camping scene is legendary.

It is one of my favorite festivals because of the diversity of talent that they present.   This year is going to be interesting because they are bringing in a lot of "young" performers, some of who are hard to define as "folk".   Yet they also have people like Jean Ritchie, Tom Paxton and others to appeal to more traditional tastes. As someone from the festival said "This isn't your father's folk festival, but he would want to be there."

I love the Philly Fest for the strong community that comes each year to enjoy themselves, but I can also see that not everyone wants to belong to every community.