Photo Credit: Bear Creek Folk Festival Facebook page

By Curtis Galbraith

Community

“Very, very special year” for 2023 Bear Creek Folk Festival says producer

Oct 9, 2023 | 6:00 AM

Ticket sales were way up for this year’s Bear Creek Folk Festival.

Producer Sarah Card says there was a 27 per cent increase and there were over 6000 people on site for every day of the three-day music festival held in August in Muskoseepi Park.

“We felt, actually, some great momentum coming out of last year. 2022 was very strong and a lot of new people were introduced to the festival and word was spreading.”

“And then we had really strong headliners this year with Sarah McLachlan and Blue Rodeo. There was just some great upward momentum. People were really excited.”

Card says the attendees came from a variety of places.

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“Less than half of our audience was from the city of Grande Prairie and we saw people from 162 different towns and cities from around western Canada and beyond.”

Card adds people are already planning on coming to the 2024 edition.

“There is already a number of people who have called the box office and put themselves on a list for tickets as soon as they go on sale. Tickets go on sale in November. They’re just really excited to get weekend passes.”

Card says they hope to announce one artist that will be part of the 2024 lineup before Christmas. The full lineup will be announced in the spring.

She adds they had 600 volunteers this year and plan to grow that number by 100 for 2024. There are 30 different teams that work in areas like transporting artists, security, and helping at the gates and backstage.

Card says one of their challenges is that costs have gone up because of inflation. This year marked the first year the total cost surpassed $1 million.

She adds festival organizers are grateful for the support they get from the community.