N.L. Folk Festival forges on with scaled-down performances and fall digital series
Details are scant, but an announcement on who will be performing is expected within 2 weeks
The Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival will look different again this summer, with small live performances in and around St. John's, as well as a digital series in the fall as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We're obviously not back to normal yet, so we won't have 4,000 people here in the park this year," Erin Whitney, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Arts Society, told CBC News on Wednesday.
"But we did want to find a way to bring some level of live performances out into the public — indoor and outdoor spaces."
This year's festival begins on the weekend of July 9, with a series of concerts at the First Light Centre for Performance and Creativity on Cochrane Street over that weekend. Throughout the remainder of July, performers will pop up at various locations throughout the city to safely bring the festival feeling to small gatherings.
Details on who will be performing are not being released yet, Whitney said, but an announcement is expected within the next couple of weeks.
Whitney said the official announcement on Tuesday was due to an influx of questions rolling in regarding whether the event would happen this year. This summer will be the festival's 45th annual running.
"We still have a few details to nail down before we fully reveal all of our plans, but we did want to let everybody know that yes, we are planning some live music for the city this summer," Whitney said.
"Of course, these are all going to be very small shows, very small-scale performances and audiences."
Whitney said the digital series in the fall was a way to continue to bring the festival to larger audiences, as seen last summer when organizers took everything online.
"So we have lots of time to record all of our material. Also we're encouraging people to get outside in the summer, so maybe in the fall they'll maybe be more likely to want to sit on the couch and have a cup of tea and watch the folk festival," she said.
This year's festival is being run in partnership with Equinor Canada, DanceNL, Le Réseau Culturel Francophone du Terre-Neuve et Labrador, First Light Friendship Centre and St. John's African Roots Festival. Whitney said she hopes the 2022 festival will be held in person.
Future announcements will be made on the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Arts Society's website, and all events are contingent on public health restrictions on the date of the performance, the organization said.
With files from Heather Gillis