When is folklife festival seattle

The festival started in and since it attracts thousands of audience locals and tourists who fill the city. The demand for hotels is especially high thus it is recommended to order tickets and hotel room in advance. Each year, the festival spotlights a particular ethnic community or folk tradition.

About 6, musicians, dancers and various artists entertain huge audience of more than , that reach the place in order to enjoy the unique atmosphere of the festival. We strongly recommended that you check with the organizers before making any travel arrangements. Email Optional.

Isle of Wight festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Tribeca Film Festival Celebrating its 50th anniversary in , the annual Northwest Folklife Festival is a community-powered celebration of the arts, culture, and heritage that make up the brilliant cultural tapestry of the greater Pacific Northwest.

Prior to , over 6, artists and culture-bearers brought cultural expressions to audiences across 25 stages alongside food and craft vendors and volunteers annually. Since , the Northwest Folklife Festival has gathered upwards of , participants at Seattle Center during Memorial Day weekend. No one was featured. The festival is about folklife; folklife is what people do. Both were classically trained musicians when they began exploring traditional music, much of which they were exposed to in the Darrington community.

The Park Service, looking to develop a presence in cities through folk festivals, first teamed up with the Folk Festival Association in Large crowds arrived the next day and continued to build on Sunday and Monday Memorial Day. Leo Bernash of the National Folk Festival Association walked the grounds with one of the festival's founders, Phil Williams , a member of the Seattle Folklore Society and the mandolin player for the Tall Timber String Band, and asked him, "How did you ever audition all of these people?

Williams replied:. The theory was, if you give a person an opportunity, they'll do a good job, and that's what it's all about We tried to stay away from the idea that we had these 'stars ' No one was featured" White. That first festival had only one name that many people might have recognized -- bluegrass-roots virtuoso David Bromberg.

But no performers were paid and the bulk of the budget went strictly to logistics and travel expenses for some of the artists. There were a few scheduling mix-ups, attributed to the rushed nature of the planning, yet overall the first Northwest Folk-Life Festival was a hit.

The final crowd tally was an eye-opening , people. The Seattle Folklore Society Journal published an exuberant post-mortem by Andy Wallace, who noted that even the weather cooperated with four days of clear skies. Yet it was the scope of the festival that he found truly remarkable. The old-time fiddlers turned out en masse and did much to set the carefree, traditional flavor of the event, filling in all over the grounds.

There was also plenty of fine singing in the Northwest Festival Court, and despite several powwows that weekend, the native peoples were well represented by the Cape Fox Tribe, Chief Antelope and the King Island Eskimos, one of the real treats of the festival Phil Williams told The Seattle Times that "we felt it was a good festival -- not in spite of the [planning] handicaps -- but a good festival, period" "Folk-Life Festival Will Become The most important affirmation came a few days later when the National Folk Festival Association announced that it would become an annual event at Seattle Center.

With an entire year to plan, the second annual Northwest Folk-Life Festival was far bigger and more ambitious. It opened on May 25, , and featured "1, performers and craftsmen," according to the Times "Folk Festival Has Organizers estimated attendance at a whopping , Attendance figures for a non-ticketed festival are largely guesswork, yet even accounting for some inflation by optimistic organizers, it already seemed clear that it had become the largest folk festival in the country, surpassing even the Wolf Trap event.

The mix of performers was similar to that of the first event: "The performers ranged from semi-rank amateurs to polished stage veterans -- 25 string bands, a dozen ethnic dance groups, puppeteers, Indian artisans and more than fiddlers" "Folk Festival Has Williams, the festival committee chair, again stressed that there were no big names because we want to "keep professionalism out of this -- the idea is to get people to come out into the public and show what they do to amuse themselves in their own living rooms" "Folk Festival Has However, there were some names that were familiar in the region's folk scene, including autoharpist Bryan Bowers b.

O'Connor would go on to become a star and win multiple Grammy Awards. Once again, the performers were not paid and most had to pay for their own transportation. Seattle Center donated its facilities and its staff time. The festival was hampered by cold and rainy weather and attendance dropped to , Yet it rebounded to , in The round numbers are a further hint that these were rough estimates, yet there was no doubt that the Northwest Folk-Life Festival had become firmly established as one of the region's favorite Memorial Day weekend activities.

Rain was always a concern in the Seattle climate, and in festival coordinator Lesley Petty was quoted as saying, "Oh, why did it have to rain? I'm afraid it's going to keep up this way all weekend. But the magic is still here. The participants are having a good time" Lowman. To mitigate the effects of weather, more events were scheduled indoors and by , the Seattle Center Playhouse stage was being used for acts including gospel choirs, mimes, and shadow-play performers.