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(Sylvia Gobel) The Fall Folk Festival is
a two-day free event showcasing traditional,
ethnic, international and cultural folk arts.
We really encourage everyone to come.
We have over 100 performing groups so it's very diverse
and very exciting. Everyone is pretty much
from the Inland Northwest. The mission is to promote
traditional and ethnic folk arts.
The Fall Folk Festival is the only festival in Spokane where
you will be able to see so many performances all in one place.
We are the biggest festival in the area
that focuses on folk arts.
♪♪♪
The festival takes place at Spokane Community College
on Saturday and Sunday. We estimate that about
5 to 6000 people come through the doors over both days.
♪♪♪
This festival is very important I think for folk musicians
in the Spokane area because they don't have very many
opportunities to perform and they're like hidden gems
in our community that nobody knows about.
I get the comment so much saying I never knew there were so many
really exciting and excellent performers in Spokane.
♪♪♪
The Fall Folk Festival got its start in 1996.
The festival is part of the Spokane Folklore Society
which is a non-profit organization.
Most of the support for the festival comes from donations.
The festival would not be possible without volunteers.
It is an entirely volunteer run festival
and we have so many people that love the festival
that volunteer that it comes together pretty easily.
The festival offers much more than just music.
We have children's crafts, we have a family crafts room.
And we have craft vendors selling all kinds of
wonderful traditional, ethnic and international crafts
made locally and brought in from around the world.
(vendor) Take a picture, smile!
♪♪♪
(Terra Price) We have a little piece of everything
at the Folk Festival and I think it really connects
us to the rest of the country and the world.
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I think most people do not realize how large it is.
They are so surprised when they come and find 8 stages
going on simultaneously and that they have to choose.
People are just amazed that there's so much going on.
they don't expect that.
♪♪♪
I think this festival is unique to Spokane;
there is nothing like it. This is the only one
in Spokane which showcases the traditional, international
and cultural and brings everybody together into sort of
one big venue where they can all appreciate each other.
♪♪♪
(musician) Thank you very much. Thanks for coming out
to the Spokane Fall Folk Music Festival.
(James Hunter) This is like the second or third time
we've played at the folk festival and we love it
just because you have like a hundred folk acts,
all kinds of different stuff; Indian music, Irish music
like we play, marimba music from Africa, there's
just everything here. This is a place for all of
the folk people in Spokane and the greater Spokane area
to get together and play and we just love it.
♪♪♪
To me there's nothing better than live music.
It's an incredible connection that you get from being
in the same room with a musician.
Being there and sharing the energy that is created
is so much more exciting when you're right there.
♪♪♪
To me it's the most wonderful result of the festival
to connect the performers with an audience.
Folk music appeals to everyone. Sometimes people don't
know they're going to love it, but once they come
to the festival, once they hear it they love it.
♪♪♪