Winnipeg Folk Festival

[jff]

Have any of you been to this festival?   We're flying up from Atlanta to Winnipeg while this is going on and bought four day tickets.  We'll probably only go two days. depending on the schedule.

 

Anyway, looks like a really fun festival with a wide variety of music.  This will be the eighth province we've visited.

 

Any tips?  Winnipeg tips in general?

[theashtraysays]

paging our Winnipeg ambassador @TCP

[TCP]

Hello! Giant post incoming...

Winnipeg Folk Festival is great! My work flew me out to Winnipeg in 2018, in the middle of summer, before offering me a role out here. Going to Folk Festival is one of the first things I did in this city and I think it's a big part of the reason I fell in love with this city. Then when I moved out it was middle of December and that...... is a very different city.

WPG FF has a laid back atmosphere that feels very community grown.

There's a few things about it I would describe as archaic. Mostly the seating/standing rules. Most people at the festival have a low to the ground lawn chair. You can only stand at the "Big Blue @ Night" Stage (which is the party stage with a lot of indie rock acts), a tiny little sliver to the side of the mainstage at night (usually full of drunk teenagers having more fun than me), and then in front of the mainstage during the headliner ONLY. Last year we sat through a performance from Miley Cyrus' sister, who's a pop singer, so we could see Orville Peck. Security kept shouting down the youths who wanted to stand and dance, until Mikey Cyrus' sister told them to let them stand "it's a music festival!". 

Otherwise, it's sitting for most of the evening performances at the main stage, and all the day time stages. Usually this is fine if you're seeing someone mellow but I saw the New Pornos a few years ago on a side stage and it was disappointing to be forced to sit. Folk Fest is a non-profit with a lot of people who have been involved for decades. I have no proof of this but I am sure there's a few old-timers who refuse to budge on this issue.

The seat of your chair can't be any taller than 2 feet. I have an extra chair you're welcome to. I also am in the market to replace my chairs as they lean too far back for this tall guy, so if I do you're welcome to borrow three of them. Otherwise Canadian Tire should have something affordable.

If you want to get upfront for the mainstage, there's this ridiculous thing called the tarp shuffle and a surprising lack of information available online about it, but if this sounds appealing to you let me know and I can go over how it works.

The workshops during the day are really great. In my experience, the performers usually stray from the theme forced on them from the organizers, but you can hear acts perform together and doing off-the-cuff performances. 

Winnipeg in July can be very hot. Don't let the Winterpeg thing fool you! Bring sunscreen, shorts, etc. It can also storm. But storms won't stick around for long as there's no mountains so the clouds will just move along. So bring some rain ponchos. 

Food is expensive but the dollar will be working in your favour. Lines can get long during the dinner hours, so plan strategically. 

Are you going to have a vehicle? Be aware that even though it's called the Winnipeg Folk Festival, it's not actually in Winnipeg, it's about a 45 minute drive north. The good news is the park is beautiful. There's a bus you can take from downtown OR if our schedules align you're welcome to hitch a ride with me.

 

Winnipeg gets a lot of hate from the rest of Canada but I think it's a beautiful city with lots of character. It has its problems, yes, but what place doesn't? Summers are beautiful. I would recommend staying near The Forks. 

 

Feel free to shoot me a message if you want to talk more! 

 

[jff]

Thanks for all that info!  it's funny about sitting since everything I've seen about the festival emphasizes dancing.  Looks similar to a hippie or jam band festival from their vids.

 

Our plan is to stay Downtown (not exactly sure where yet, though we definitely plan to hit up the Forks area) and take the shuttle to the festival.  Not sure which days we'll go to the festival.   It's possible we'll rent a car so we have more flexibility.

 

I'll hit you up again as the date approaches.  Maybe we can meet up at the festival.  Would be fun to meet a VC'er in person.

[calvino]

On 4/2/2025 at 3:14 PM, TCP said:

Hello! Giant post incoming...

Winnipeg Folk Festival is great! My work flew me out to Winnipeg in 2018, in the middle of summer, before offering me a role out here. Going to Folk Festival is one of the first things I did in this city and I think it's a big part of the reason I fell in love with this city. Then when I moved out it was middle of December and that...... is a very different city.

WPG FF has a laid back atmosphere that feels very community grown.

There's a few things about it I would describe as archaic. Mostly the seating/standing rules. Most people at the festival have a low to the ground lawn chair. You can only stand at the "Big Blue @ Night" Stage (which is the party stage with a lot of indie rock acts), a tiny little sliver to the side of the mainstage at night (usually full of drunk teenagers having more fun than me), and then in front of the mainstage during the headliner ONLY. Last year we sat through a performance from Miley Cyrus' sister, who's a pop singer, so we could see Orville Peck. Security kept shouting down the youths who wanted to stand and dance, until Mikey Cyrus' sister told them to let them stand "it's a music festival!". 

Otherwise, it's sitting for most of the evening performances at the main stage, and all the day time stages. Usually this is fine if you're seeing someone mellow but I saw the New Pornos a few years ago on a side stage and it was disappointing to be forced to sit. Folk Fest is a non-profit with a lot of people who have been involved for decades. I have no proof of this but I am sure there's a few old-timers who refuse to budge on this issue.

The seat of your chair can't be any taller than 2 feet. I have an extra chair you're welcome to. I also am in the market to replace my chairs as they lean too far back for this tall guy, so if I do you're welcome to borrow three of them. Otherwise Canadian Tire should have something affordable.

If you want to get upfront for the mainstage, there's this ridiculous thing called the tarp shuffle and a surprising lack of information available online about it, but if this sounds appealing to you let me know and I can go over how it works.

The workshops during the day are really great. In my experience, the performers usually stray from the theme forced on them from the organizers, but you can hear acts perform together and doing off-the-cuff performances. 

Winnipeg in July can be very hot. Don't let the Winterpeg thing fool you! Bring sunscreen, shorts, etc. It can also storm. But storms won't stick around for long as there's no mountains so the clouds will just move along. So bring some rain ponchos. 

Food is expensive but the dollar will be working in your favour. Lines can get long during the dinner hours, so plan strategically. 

Are you going to have a vehicle? Be aware that even though it's called the Winnipeg Folk Festival, it's not actually in Winnipeg, it's about a 45 minute drive north. The good news is the park is beautiful. There's a bus you can take from downtown OR if our schedules align you're welcome to hitch a ride with me.

 

Winnipeg gets a lot of hate from the rest of Canada but I think it's a beautiful city with lots of character. It has its problems, yes, but what place doesn't? Summers are beautiful. I would recommend staying near The Forks. 

 

Feel free to shoot me a message if you want to talk more! 

 

 

 Why does Winnipeg get hate from the rest of Canada - sorry - just curious. (living in Chicago we tend to get a lot of hate from parts of the USA)

 

We vacationed for a week in the Tobermory, Ontario, Canada in 2019 and enjoyed it. We happened to be there during the Civic Holiday weekend - which we didn't know going in - made for a crowded beach one day, but it was a hoot.

[TCP]

On 4/15/2025 at 4:00 PM, calvino said:

 

 Why does Winnipeg get hate from the rest of Canada - sorry - just curious. (living in Chicago we tend to get a lot of hate from parts of the USA)

 

The winters are pretty brutal here. I describe it as 'Winnipeg is the actual part of Canada that Americans envision Canadian winter being like'. They're cold and long. But the summers are hot and beautiful. And I do think the tough winters are, at least partly responsible for the amount of art and music that comes from this city. Out of all the major Canadian cities, Winnipeg is the smallest, yet Neil Young, The Guess Who (+BTO), The Weakerthans, Propaghandi, William Prince, etc etc are all from Winnipeg (or nearby, in the case of Propaghandi). Can you name that many bands from Calgary?

It also has crime and a meth problem but I would argue it's not any different than any other city these days. It's really the only proper size city in Manitoba so you get a lot of people from around the province living in Winnipeg because they can get support to social services. This is a good thing but does result in more homeless people battling mental health issues and drug addiction.

Even with its issues I think it's a city with character and actually has some history compared to other Western Canadian cities. 

[jff]

Really looking forward to getting up to Winnipeg in a couple days.  Flying up Wednesday, attending the fest on Friday and Saturday.  Weather forecast is all over the place at the moment. but looks like it won't be too hot, which is lovely.  I'd prefer a bit of rain over scorching temps.   

 

What's the mosquito situation like at the festival?  They've been vicious this summer in the southern US.

 

 

 

 

[TCP]

It's been a very dry spring, so I would imagine the bugs won't be bad. The first few years I went I always brought bug spray but I've never ended up using it. I think they spray the area pretty good for mosquitoes in preparation for Folk Fest. Just a heads up, Manitoba's had some devastating forest fires recently, which has caused some poor air quality and hazy days. But it's been smoke free for the past few weeks.

Coming from the west coast, one thing I've realized is the weather forecasting in the Prairies is much less reliable. I'm not going to put too much stock in the forecast until we're a few days closer. Unfortunately with the Canadian Prairies this time of year, when it does storm it likes to storm in the evening. This can cause delays as they won't let performances happen if there's been a lightning within a certain radius. Let's hope for clear skies or at the very least, storms at the middle of the night.

Are you a Kevin Morby and/or Waxahatchee fan? If so, take note of their workshop on Friday afternoon, sounds like it will be a duo performance which is pretty rare for them. This sort of stuff is always the coolest part of Folk Fest, IMHO. 

[jff]

52 minutes ago, TCP said:

 

Are you a Kevin Morby and/or Waxahatchee fan? If so, take note of their workshop on Friday afternoon, sounds like it will be a duo performance which is pretty rare for them. This sort of stuff is always the coolest part of Folk Fest, IMHO. 

 

Definitely planning on catching her main set, and his if we're there on time.  

 

We'll probably aim to get there around 3:00 or 4:00 each day.  We went to Cruel World last year in CA and got there at 1:00 or 2:00 and we were wiped out by the time the main headliners played.

[TCP]

That's very fair. We have the benefit/obligation of having dogs, so we've planned pauses in the middle of the day to go home and let them out. It ends up being more driving than I'd like but preferable to spending too long out there. The heat, the noise, the walking around, all adds up. 

[TCP]

Did you enjoy Folk Fest? Sorry about the smoke!!

[jff]

23 hours ago, TCP said:

Did you enjoy Folk Fest? Sorry about the smoke!!

 

Yes, we enjoyed the fest and the city.  We only ended up at the festival on Friday afternoon/evening, the worst smoke day.   We saw Los Bitchos, some of La Lom, and Waxahatchee's full set.  We were a little disappointed she didn't have her band with her, but she sounded fantastic.  Everyone we saw was great.    

 

We had a weird snafu getting there.  We showed up for the shuttle around 2:35 and there was already more than one bus worth of people waiting, so we would have had to wait 90 minutes for the second bus.  Instead, we jumped in an Uber, but there was a glitch.  Apparently there's another place called Bird's Hill something or other, and we went there (it's in the middle of nowhere on an access road) only to discover the festival was outside of Winnipeg and Ubers aren't allowed to leave the city limits (?)  So we went back and waited for the bus.  Got there at 5:00 instead of our intended 3:30 or 4:00.

 

Overall, we enjoyed the city the most. Great food, nice people.  Bought 20 records between Into the Music and the antique market in Johnston Terminal.  Some cool stuff I've never seen before.  Also enjoyed wandering along the river.  In Atlanta we have no significant bodies of water inside the city, so it's always nice treat to be around water.  The Leaf was wonderful, too.

 

We hope to come back sometime.  We didn't get to check out Osbourne or St. Boniface (among other things).  Several people told us to come back for Folklorama.  That could happen.