The Georgian Bay Folk Society is hoping to raise money to make Summerfolk 50 a reality.
The 50th anniversary edition of the folk music festival is seeing some financial issues thanks to a loss of grant funding, a tight budget, and rain storms during Summerfolk 49.
Georgian Bay Folk Society Operations Manager Jaret Koop says that it all started with the COVID-19 pandemic. When the society put together Summerfolk 2023, the cost of the festival jumped up by 40%.
“We tried to adjust to it, and this past year we made some changes to our budget that gave us a real good shot at getting back to a situation where we would be OK,” said Koop. “Losing money, but not in a terrible way.”
Trying to keep the music and crafts festival in the black was a challenge, but they pressed on with a plan.
Unfortunately, the weather for Summerfolk 49 had some very different plans, drenching the region with record amounts of rain for a mid-August weekend.
“Everything was going quite well until the weekend, when we got hit with storms every day,” he explained. “The storm on Sunday was so big, it made us forget about the big storm on Saturday. From what I understand, it was a record amount of rainfall for this area in three hours, combined with high and dangerous wind that was sustained.”
During the 2024 festival, the heavy rains and high winds led to musicians, vendors, and patrons scrambling for cover from the elements.
“We had to evacuate the south end of the part, we had to shut down the main stage, we had to shut down the wine bar,” he said. “We had to shift all of our programming up into the Down By The Bay tent.”
Koop said that thanks to some quick thinking from the crew and from visitors, they were able to keep the festival going.
He credits artistic director James Keelaghan with thinking to quickly speak over the sound system to ask for help to get everything safe.
Aside from weather issues, Summerfolk 49 saw a drop in ticket sales – around 1,000 fewer tickets sold compared to the previous year.
Due to the stormy weather, the organization is hoping to raise money to make Summerfolk 50 possible, particularly because some equipment was damaged in the storms.
Summerfolk 50 is scheduled for August 15-17, 2025.
You can support the festival by becoming a member, buying merchandise, and getting early bird weekend passes at summerfolk.org