four days of the CALGARY FOLK FESTIVAL

Today marks the start of the 29th annual Calgary Folk Festival. Our neighborhood uses this event as a social outing and over 20 families come out to help "run the tarps" each morning in order to secure prime seating for the maximum viewing pleasure.

This photo shows the line-up (waving their regulation sized blue tarps) ready for the gates to open when the mob descends onto the grassy lawn before the main stage used over the four evenings. I am actually in the green striped shirt on the right hand side laden down with chairs, coolers, and backpacks of all the runners. This is fun! We start lining up at 7 am each morning, in preparation for the gates to open at 3:30 pm. This applies to Thursday and Friday mornings, but on Saturday and Sunday we actually have volunteers who sleep on the grounds overnight to save our place in line.

This year I am looking forward to hearing the acts: Andrew Bird, Torngat, Consonant C, Jesse Winchester, Woodpigeon, Les Tireux d'Roches, Basia Bulat, Kobo Town, Eliana Cuevas, Beija Flor...
and, best of all, discovering new ones in the process.