A folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music. This list includes folk festivals worldwide, except those with only a partial focus on folk music or arts. Folk festivals may also feature folk dance or ethnic foods.
Handicrafting has long been exhibited at such events and festival-like gatherings, as it has its roots in the rural crafts. Like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural, political, and/or religious significance. Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic, and is often sold at festivals by tradespeople or practicing amateurs.[1] As at folk festivals, such art and handicraft may also appear at historical reenactments and events such as Renaissance fairs.
Africa
South Africa
Asia
Bangladesh
India
Israel
- Jacob's Ladder[2]
Europe
- Europeade (held each year in a different European country)
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Belgium
Bulgaria
Stara planina fest Balkan folk[4]
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Festival-Mediaval XIV, "Folk of the World"
Greece
Ireland
Lithuania
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Netherlands
- Castlefest
- Worldfestival Parade Brunssum
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
- Between The Trees
- Beverley Folk Festival
- Cambridge Folk Festival
- Celtic Connections
- England's Medieval Festival
- Edinburgh Folk Festival
- Fairport's Cropredy Convention
- FolkEast Festival
- The Green Man Festival
- Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival
- Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival
- Shetland Folk Festival
- Shrewsbury Folk Festival
- Sidmouth Folk Festival
- Soma Festival
- Wickham Festival
- Wimborne Folk Festival
North America
Honduras
Canada
- Calgary Folk Music Festival
- Canmore Folk Music Festival
- Edmonton Folk Music Festival
- Vancouver Folk Music Festival
- Winnipeg Folk Festival (Birds Hill)
- Celtic Colours (Cape Breton)
- Stan Rogers Folk Festival (Canso)
- CityFolkFestival (Ottawa)
- Emerald Music Festival
- Hillside Festival (Guelph)
- Home County Folk Festival (London)
- Mariposa Folk Festival (Orillia)
- Mill Race Festival of Traditional Folk Music (Cambridge)
- Northern Lights Festival Boréal (Sudbury)
- Red Rock Folk Festival (Red Rock)
- Regina Folk Festival
- Summerfolk Music and Crafts Festival (Owen Sound)
- TD Canada Trust Sunfest (London)
United States
Alaska
California
District of Columbia
Florida
Illinois
Fox Valley Folk Music And Storytelling Festival
Indiana
Maine
Massachusetts
Montana
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Traveling
Washington
Wisconsin
Oceania
Australia
New Zealand
- Whare Flat Folk Festival - held over the New Year period at Whare Flat near Dunedin; run by Dunedin's New Edinburgh Folk Club
References
Further reading
- Coffin, Tristam P.; Cohen, Hennig, (editors), Folklore in America; tales, songs, superstitions, proverbs, riddles, games, folk drama and folk festivals, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966. Selections from the Journal of American folklore. Cf. chapter on "Folk Drama and Folk Festival", pp. 195–225,