The prospect of muddy spots at the site of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this year didn’t deter the crowds. An estimated 100,000 people – about 25,000 each day – will have graced the grounds in Edmonton’s Cloverdale neighbourhood, the festival’s producer told CTV News Edmonton on Sunday, the final day of the four-day event on the ski hill slopes at Gallagher Park. Most of them are repeats each day, Terry Wickham said, including an army of 2,800 volunteers. He singled out the festival site crew as “the real heroes of the weekend, apart from the musicians.” “(They) turned this from a mucky kind of ... you couldn’t (even) walk on it ... to a functioning festival site,” Wickham said. “The challenge was you had to build a festival site as well as fix it every week because it would rain again. They did a magnificent job.” Edmonton saw record rainfall in June and July, leaving grounds across the city saturated, including at Gallagher Park. Thursday’s opening of the gates was delayed by one hour, but the main stage performances started on time. Nathaniel Rateliff is scheduled to close the 47th annual Folk Fest on Sunday night. The main stage will also see Ocie Elliott and St. Paul & The Broken Bones play the main stage Sunday evening. Previous headlining performers included Arrested Development and Cat Power on Saturday and Of Monsters and Men and Buffalo Traffic Jam on Friday. Seven different side stages saw more than 70 acts play over the four-day event. Music and merchandise tents, an artisans’ market and a family fun area also graced the grounds in Edmonton’s river valley Cloverdale neighbourhood. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Noah Rishaug
