In the past decade, growth in attendance has made development of our site a critical part of our long-term vision and is now essential to our future success.

Urgent Need

Since the Winnipeg Folk Festival began in 1974, our site at Birds Hill Provincial Park has welcomed more than 1.5 million visitors. Delivering a high quality experience has been one of our top objectives and though at times challenging, the festival has managed to meet this goal in spite of exponential growth, the wear and tear of time and weather on equipment, and rising health, safety, and security demands.

In the past decade, the festival has grown by almost 60% with half of our visitors coming from other parts of Manitoba, Canada and the USA. To ensure the continued success of the festival we must take a proactive approach to accommodate growth while still respecting our environmental footprint. The redevelopment of the site is critical to this goal.

The festival has brought a goldmine of discovery, prosperity and benefits to our community. Each year the festival welcomes hundreds of musicians from all over the world. Beloved and well-known artists share the stage with lesser-known and emerging performers, in many instances introducing our audiences to music they may never have heard and playing a significant role in the career development of the artists themselves. In 2009 the festival generated $25.7 million in gross economic activity and created 244 jobs.*

As we raise funds for the most ambitious project in our history, we need your help. Without this capital campaign, the Winnipeg Folk Festival will not have the financial resources to enable continued growth and protect this incredible community asset. This will be an opportunity to support one of Manitoba’s most cherished signature attractions for residents, visitors, artists and businesses.

^{* Economic Impact Assessment by Tourism Winnipeg}