Amid music festival struggles, Winnipeg Folk Festival continues to thrive

The Winnipeg Folk Festival has completely sold out before opening day for the first time in its history.

The Winnipeg Folk Festival has survived the COVID-19 pandemic, changing audience tastes, and the growing cost of everything from booking talent to paying for fencing to remain a viable destination every summer in Birds Hill Provincial Park.

The annual festival, one of the longest-running in Manitoba, got underway Thursday, and in a first in its 51-year history, the event was a complete sellout before the first note was played.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” said Valerie Shantz, the festival’s executive director. “We have, over time, sold individual days out during the festival, but to sell out of the whole festival days before it’s begun is just a testament to how many people want to come and be there this year, and we are over the moon.”

Shantz said they were preparing for a change in attendance this year after the 50th anniversary in 2025, which saw 79,000 people attend over four days, setting a new attendance record.

However, the opposite happened.

“It really, I think, just reminded people of how much they wanted to be at the festival, and so this is building on, you know, years of work that’s been happening at the festival, and I just think people want to be together.”

Sour notes

The success of the Winnipeg Folk Festival comes at a trying time for Canadian music festivals.

In recent years, festivals across Canada have reported significant struggles or, in some cases, have shut down entirely since the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on large gatherings.

In 2025, the Regina Folk Festival ended after 55 years, citing financial constraints. The Vancouver Island MusicFest in B.C.’s Comox Valley also announced the same year it would no longer be hosting festivals after 30 years.

The Northern Boreal Music Festival in Sudbury, the longest continuously running music festival in Canada, raised concerns earlier this year about its financial future, noting expenses have increased 40 per cent in recent years.

“It’s very expensive to be a music festival,” said Maddy Oliver, the interim president of the Canadian Live Music Association. “The amount of infrastructure, human power, artist power. It means there are significant expenses.”

Maddy added the costs are climbing for artists to tour as well, and they’re having to ask for more money as well, and the Canadian dollar remains a factor for Canadian festival bookers.

Shantz said the Winnipeg Folk Fest has also experienced similar challenges and notes the loss of other festivals in Canada hits hard.

“It never feels good when we see one of our friends have to take a pause or decide that it’s no longer viable for them to run a festival,” she said.

Shantz said the Folk Festival needs to live within its means and keep a close eye on its budgets to stay viable.

“We have built, over time, a lot of systems to mitigate as much as we can, and we have a lot of expertise here through our volunteer crews and through our staff, but of course we’re not immune,” she said.

Maddy said government and corporate investment are vital to helping festivals stay solvent, but added promoters should continue putting the festivals on to give artists a spotlight and give fans a place to see them.

“Continue to book outstanding local and international talent,” she said. “Canadians are hungry for in-person experiences. They want to be out and about among their peers. They want to see music live and in three dimensions, and I believe increasingly so in the age of the digital.”

Shantz said the community support has remained essential for Folk Fest to continue.

“If the community were not buying tickets, if the community were not volunteering to put on the festival, coming and performing at the festival, there would be no festival,” she said. “We say we’re about people and music, and the people part is pretty darn important.”

The festival is scheduled to wrap up Sunday with a headlining performance from Of Monsters and Men.