The Cowichan Valley’s longest running folk music festival, Islands Folk Festival, is coming back live and livelier than ever.
Folk music fans should mark their calendars for a fabulous one-day-only event Saturday, July 23 at Providence Farm in Duncan.
This year’s festival marks its 38th year at the historic farm and promises a “welcome back to live” celebration packed with stellar performers.
“We want people to know that we’re back in a big way,” said festival artistic director Bruce Gerrish. “We’ll be bringing back on-site camping, a ‘wee folks’ kid zone, a shuttle service, beverage garden and food and craft vendors. We want to make it the same family-friendly event it’s always been, while also focusing on great music and performers.”
More than 25 acts will perform on the festival’s five stages throughout the day. This year’s lineup includes great performers, such as Grammy award winner Alex Cuba, Harry Manx, Jim Byrnes, The Bills, David Essig and Shari Ulrich.
“The calibre of performers is second to none,” said Gerrish. “We’re so excited to be back live and in person that we wanted to pull out all the stops to make sure we’d have an event that would bring back our wonderful fans and supporters and attract a whole lot of new folks to this tremendous festival.”
With the festival’s music line-up finalized, organizers are now busy lining up food and craft vendors and building the volunteer team to deliver a safe and seamless event. The festival’s focus has always been folk, family and fun and this year’s promises to deliver more of the same.
To find out more about this year’s festival and a full list of performers, people are encouraged to visit the festival web site at: islandsfolkfestival.ca
Tickets (youth will be half price and kids under 12 free) are now on sale online at: islandsfolk.tickit.ca/events/14466
The Islands Folk Festival is produced by the Cowichan Folk Guild, a Vancouver Island-based non-profit society.