Winnipeg Folk Fest thrives amid cruel summer for Canadian multi-artist events

Nineteen years ago, Gary Conway bought a ticket to the Winnipeg Folk Festival to hear singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn.

Conway intended to spend a single day at the festival in Birds Hill Provincial Park. He ended up attending every festival since 2006.

"We like just the energy and the spirit of the place. The vibe is just so open and comfortable and lets people be who they want to be for at least a brief period of the year," he said near the festival's main stage on Thursday, the opening night of the 50th annual event.

Conway is not alone. The Winnipeg Folk Festival is expected to draw at least 13,000 loyal, paying customers every day this weekend, which is a significant accomplishment during what's become a difficult environment for outdoor music festivals in Canada.

Rising fees for performers, a punishing U.S. exchange rate, reduced consumer spending and higher insurance charges have combined to pose existential threats to Canadian non-profit music festivals, forcing some to scale back their offerings and others to close down altogether.

The Regina Folk Music Festival went dark this summer after 55 years. Vancouver Island MusicFest in Courtenay, B.C., ceased operating after 30 seasons.

Yet after a two-year COVID hiatus and two more difficult post-pandemic seasons that culminated in a rare financial loss in 2023, the Winnipeg Folk Festival is thriving in its 50th season, thanks in no small part to decades spent establishing the festival vibe itself as the main attraction, as opposed to the artists on the top of the lineup.

"We are a multi-generational festival. So we have folks who come from the time that they are babies up until they are great-grandparents. So we we have a lot of kind of renewal built into our audience, which we really benefit from," said Valerie Shantz, the festival's second-year executive director, speaking in an interview outside the festival's main gate on Wednesday.

Shantz acknowledged the Winnipeg Folk Festival doesn't try to compete for the most well-known performers, even during a 50th-anniversary season where some fans may have expected more big names.

"Our primary function is as a discovery festival, to turn people on to things that they don't know that they would necessarily want to hear, to watch musicians play with each other and just foster that kind of spirit of discovery and community, which is a big part of the experience here," Shantz said.

Programming the festival in this way allows the Winnipeg Folk Festival to avoid competing for major artists with U.S. events that can pay in greenbacks and corporate concert promoters that can offer performers higher paydays by booking them at multiple festivals.

Dauphin's Countryfest, Manitoba's second-largest outdoor music festival, doesn't have the same luxury. While the Winnipeg Folk Festival can draw large numbers of paying fans to listen to an eclectic range folk, roots, rock and pop performers, Countryfest is more confined in its artistic choices.

This has proven to a major financial headache for the festival held at the end of June on the north slope of Riding Mountain, explained Duane McMaster, the president of the non-profit festival.

He said the fees for major country artists have skyrocketed to the point where Countryfest has trouble landing the big names that used to allow the festival to attract upwards of 12,000 paying fans a day.

"In the last seven to eight years, some of them doubled and tripled. What you're paying for a big-name entertainer has gone from $1 million to $3 million for an appearance," McMaster said Thursday in an interview over Zoom from Dauphin.

"We can't compete with the big boys, the big corporate boys that have deeper pockets and multiple festivals to back them up."

This year's Countryfest attracted closer to 6,000 paying customers a day, which is enough for Countryfest to break even at the very least, McMaster said.

This is not just a matter of sustainability for Countryfest. Profits from the festival have funded a number of amenities over the years for the nearby City of Dauphin, including a four-screen cinema, a recreation centre, walking trails and a skatepark.

Countryfest, however, remains in good shape, thanks to a small army of volunteers — roughly 1,000 this year, McMaster estimated — that help keep the festival's costs down.

A similar form of volunteerism also benefits the Winnipeg Folk Festival, which estimates its volunteer contingent at close to 2,500 people.

"Our operations would be fundamentally different if we didn't have that kind of volunteer participation," Shantz said.

Even though the Winnipeg Folk Festival is a charitable entity and Dauphin's Countryfest is a not-for-profit organization, both operate primarily as commercial enterprises that rely on ticket sales, merchandise and other festival revenue to survive.

In 2024, community foundation grants, government funding and individual charitable donations made up only 11 per cent of the Folk Fest's $6.8-million annual budget, according to the festival's annual report.

Government funding for Countryfest makes up only about five per cent of its $4-million annual budget, said McMaster, who added the organization could become a charitable entity in order to accept individual donations.

Either way, both of Manitoba's two largest outdoor music festivals are continuing to survive by fostering a sense of community in addition to making ends meet primarily through ticket sales.

The failure of some festivals elsewhere in Canada illustrates what can happen without this mix of commercial enterprise, volunteerism and community attachment. Shantz said festival directors talk to each other and have their eyes open right now.

"It's alarming, like it's not good for the sector when anybody goes down, there's no question, and it's not good for artists. It gives them fewer places to play, so we take note," Shantz said.

"We take no pleasure in being solid while we have good friends who are struggling."