FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2010 Winnipeg Folk Festival Early-bird Tickets On Sale February 13
Festival Introduces Bundled Tickets and Attendance Cap
Winnipeg, Manitoba. February 11, 2010 – It’s a big year for the Winnipeg Folk Festival who will celebrate its 37th anniversary with a number of exciting changes. In 2010 the festival will present a five-day format, opening with a “marquee” act on Wednesday, July 7 and running through Sunday, July 11.
This year, the festival will be introducing an attendance cap for the first time in its 37-year history. “As the festival’s attendance has grown, it has been challenging to know how many people can be accommodated on the site in its current configuration” said Tamara Kater, Winnipeg Folk Festival Executive Director, “While a number of programming and site enhancements are underway to accommodate the increasing attendance, our goal is to preserve the audience experience, so the potential of a sell-out does exist”. The festival will cap its daily attendance at 14,000.
The sale of festival camping will also see some changes this year with camping now bundled together with festival passes into one single ticket. “With an increase in demand for camping in recent years, the ticket restructuring is intended to make the availability of camping more accessible and fair” stated Kater.
Early-bird tickets will go on sale February 13, with the full festival pass encompassing five days. The options for purchase will be:
- Winnipeg Folk Festival five-day pass
- Winnipeg Folk Festival five-day pass with camping (festival or quiet)
- Winnipeg Folk Festival daily pass
Tickets are available at the Winnipeg Folk Festival Music Store, 211 Bannatyne Avenue from 11am – 6pm Saturday, or through Ticketmaster starting at 10 am on Saturday, February 13. Visit ticketmaster.ca or call (204) 780-3333 or 1-888-655-5354.
[Download this news release as a PDF]
About the Winnipeg Folk Festival
The Winnipeg Folk Festival, celebrating 37 years in 2010, is one of North America’s premier outdoor music festivals. It takes place each summer over the second weekend in July in Birds Hill Provincial Park, Manitoba, Canada, with the 2010 festival from July 7 to 11. The Winnipeg Folk Festival is also a year-round arts organization in Winnipeg with Education and Outreach Programs designed to benefit the community through presenting live music, music training, arts events, and operating a folk music store and performance space in Winnipeg’s Old Market Square. The Winnipeg Folk Festival is a not-for-profit charitable organization.
For more information please contact:
Margaret Koshinsky
Manager, Marketing & Communications
204-231-0096 ex. 227
margaret@winnipegfolkfestival.ca
Purchase tickets for the 2010 Winnipeg Folk Festival at:
- The Winnipeg Folk Festival Music Store, 103-211 Bannatyne Avenue
- The Winnipeg Folk Festival office, 203-211 Bannatyne Avenue
- Ticketmaster Canada: ticketmaster.ca, (204) 780-3333, or 1-888-655-5354
Ticketmaster outlets
2010 FESTIVAL TICKET PRICES
- Visit our Tickets page for detailed ticket price information
Festival tickets are sold at Early Bird, Advance, and Gate prices. In 2010, the full festival pass will encompass five days. For those who wish to camp, (in either Festival or Quiet campgrounds) camping fees will be bundled with the festival pass into one single ticket.
The 2010 festival prices include GST and a Ticketmaster service charge that is applied to each ticket. Please note that other surcharges may apply when you purchase your tickets (for example, a mailing fee). Prices are in Canadian dollars. Children are 5-14, youth 15-17, and seniors 65+. Regardless of any errors which may occur on this website, the price quoted to you at time of purchase is the price of the ticket.
Five Days Of Winnipeg Folk Festival!
Expanded Program Planned for 2010
Winnipeg, Manitoba (December 1, 2009) – After a successful 2009 that saw the Winnipeg Folk Festival reach its highest attendance ever, the festival is pleased to announce an expanded five-day format for 2010, taking place at Birds Hill Park from July 7 to 11.
The 2009 program featured Elvis Costello on Wednesday night, thanks to the support of Industry Canada’s Marquee Tourism Events Program, an initiative under Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The response from the community was so overwhelmingly positive that plans are now in motion to kick off the 2010 festival on Wednesday night with another ‘marquee’ act.
Early-bird tickets will go on sale February 14, with the full festival pass encompassing five days. For those who wish to purchase camping passes, these will now be bundled together with festival passes into one single ticket. Pricing will be finalized in early 2010, and the options for purchase will be:
- Winnipeg Folk Festival five-day pass
- Winnipeg Folk Festival five-day pass with camping (festival or quiet)
- Winnipeg Folk Festival daily pass
“The festival is thrilled to be able to maintain the addition of a fifth evening of music in 2010,” says Tamara Kater, Executive Director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. “With the expanded program in the works, and an increase in demand for camping tickets in recent years, our ticket restructuring was motivated by the desire to make the distribution of camping tickets more fair and more accessible.”
While camping passes will only be sold to the public when bundled with five-day festival passes, volunteers will be able to purchase their camping passes separately through the Winnipeg Folk Festival though details have yet to be announced.
Expanding to 5 days is great, but for many of us 4 days is all we can manage and / or prefer. I am hoping that there will be a 4 day as well as a 5 day pass available.
Does this mean there will be NO christmas sale for gift giving of FOlk Fest passes?
Why not open the camp grounds on the Tuesday to allow people time to set up? This year the line-ups to get into the campground were awful. Even if you had a ticket to the Wednesday night, in many cases you couldn’t attend because you were still trying to set up.
There must be a way to speed up the process of getting into the campground. Have volunteers take tickets and put wristbands on while people are sitting in lineups to get into the campsite is one idea.
@Mayer Pawlow, thanks for your question – it is one that we asked ourselves in planning this. Unfortunately we can’t offer a four-day pass because of ticketing logistics. At a certain point we can’t add more ticket types and wristbands to our system or it is not effective anymore. We’re working hard to keep the full festival (five-day) price a good value for those who want to attend four or five days. Hope to see you in 2010.
@Laurie, details about our December sale are on our Facebook page.
Will the festival campground open earlier, ie Tuesday for set up? Coming last year after work on the Wednesday, by the time we got thru the campground line and got set up we had missed most of the Wed evening show.
@shirley canty & @Jaclyn, thanks for your suggestions about camping.
Last year saw long lineups for campers waiting to get into Festival Campground. We are considering alternative solutions for a safe and more efficient entrance procedure for campers on Wednesday morning (including but not limited to: an earlier opening time, combined wristbands, and additional volunteers). Be assured that your concerns will be heard – please feel free to submit any other ideas to info@winnipegfolkfestival.ca
This is wonderful news! I’ve always loved the festival being as long as four days, and to add another is the fifth scoop of ice cream in my cone. There’s one thing I was concerned with this past year and I can speak for many of my fellow camp-mates. One of the highlights of the festival, for us, has been the anticipation of a fabulous musical performance on the campground itself on Saturday Night. My first year was 2005 and I’ve seen great acts such as Maestro Ayahuasquero, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, That 1 Guy, and several others at this special stage. This was noticeably lacking in 2009 and we would love to see the return of the Saturday night campground performance in 2010 and following years.
Is there music at the festival all day on Thursday, then? Or is it just Wed night, Thurs night as “normal?” I’ve been going to the ‘Fest for 13 years now and this is a big change. A good change, but like the first poster, something that I’ll have to get used to or consider the normal thurs-sun (from St Paul, MN). With travels all day on Thursday and Monday, having an extra day may not be worth it for those of us who don’t live in the area. But I can appreciate that many others like this change! Is the new grounds going to be ready for 2010?
What are you doing to make the festival AND the festival campground friendlier for folks with disabilities?
It would be great if the campground could open on Tue… Why not allow people to purchase an extra night of camping tue. if they want to set up early?
@Melissa
There will be music Wednesday evening and Thursday evening. Unfortunately there will be no programming during the day on Thursday; it will be Thursday night as normal. We understand that this change may be frustrating, especially for loyal attendees (like you) who are coming from out of town – now in order to enjoy the full festival you have to leave a day earlier, find an additional night of accommodations if you aren’t camping, and find a way to occupy yourself during the day on Thursday.
In 2009 when we announced that the festival would be 5 days, the four day ticket had already been on sale for several months. The addition required two separately priced Wednesday passes: 1 for patrons who wanted to attend Wednesday only and 1 for patrons who had purchased a full festival pass. For us this was a logistical nightmare. Many people bought the wrong ticket or left their correct ticket at home when they came to the festival. Both mistakes required ticket refunds, increased wait times at the Festival entrance, and customer dissatisfaction. The process was difficult for staff, Ticketmaster, volunteers, and patrons who purchased the wrong ticket.
The 5 day ticket is a huge simplification for us and the additional cost is only partially covers extra artistic and site costs (for example more volunteers, extended rental of port-a-potties, recycling bins, etc). However, we do realize that it my make some patrons feel uncomfortably ‘locked in’ and we are sorry for that.
The new grounds won’t be ready for 2010, but some construction will be underway. Stay tuned for future announcements regarding site plans!