I've been attending the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival every year since 2001, and I drive eleven hours…read moreeach way to do it. Barefoot. In the snow. Uphill both ways. Just kidding. :) But I probably would if I had to. It used to take place the fourth weekend of July, but this year it was the first weekend of August. Probably best to watch the website for next and subsequent years' dates.
Falcon Ridge is a three-day-long festival of contemporary folk music. I qualify it as "contemporary" to distinguish it from traditional folk, which you can find there to some degree, as well, but the roster centers mostly on singer-songwriters who perform their own work or develop new ways of presenting older tunes, along with string-driven bands. Cajun, bluegrass, and occasionally even polka are represented, as well. In addition to the main stage, there's a family stage with entertainment for the little ones, a dance tent featuring contra and other kinds of dancing until 2am, and a workshop stage for a more intimate experience. Tickets at the gate are around $40-50 for one day or $130-160 for the weekend, but they're much cheaper online ahead of time.
The festival offers camping for the weekend across a huge expanse of farmland. RV and tent camping are both welcome, and the camping area is much more comfortable than at some other music festivals I've been to. There's plenty of room for groups to spread out, though the area nearest to the stages and the flattest ground get filled up pretty early. There's no modern plumbing or electrical hookups (it is just a farm), but the site crew volunteers build a fairly decent set of showers that operate by hose.
Hike your way "up the hill" and you can find all-night stages set up in the campground itself for nighttime concerts organized independently from (but still permitted by) the festival itself. Though the scheduled stages in the main festival area run from roughly 10am to 2am (or to 6:30pm on the last day), it's possible to find music playing somewhere or another for a solid and unbroken 72 hours. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to sleep.
I've been volunteering since 2004 and have met some awesome, amazing people by doing so. I look forward to seeing them year after year. When I head out from Ohio to get there, people ask me, "You're going alone?" and I have to say, "Only until I get there!" Volunteering gets you free admission and two meals a day. Different crews come with different demands on your time, but they'll all leave you plenty of time to enjoy the festival.
The food and craft area has inexplicably shrunk in the past few years, but all my favorite food stands are still there where they've always been. There are food options for everyone from vegans to carnivores and everywhere in between. Absolutely obligatory (unless you're avoiding sugar, wheat, or chocolate, I suppose) are the chippers from Taste Budd's: chocolate chip cookie bars with the taste of a cookie and the density of a firm brownie. There's one vegan option, while dairy/egg eaters have a selection of a few varieties.
There are two quibbles I have with the festival, which are shared by most festival regulars I know.
One is not the festival's fault, but it's something to be aware of if you come. Although cellular phone service works mostly ok there, data service is nil, not just at the festival itself but in the entire town and surrounding area. I couldn't check into Falcon Ridge on the Yelp app because by the time I drove out far enough to get the signal I needed, Yelp told me I was too far away from the festival to check in. So although phone calls can go through, most people found text messages to be slow as muck, and most smartphone apps were useless. Not a tragedy if you're prepared for it. It might be questionable why you'd want to come out and be rustic for the weekend yet spend the whole time on your phone.
The other quibble most definitely is the festival's responsibility, and that is performer booking. Now... I don't have any problem with the specific performers who do play regularly. I love and appreciate them. But aside from the Emerging Artists Showcase, the new blood is just veeeeeeery slow to trickle in. To be clear, I'm not talking about this year. This year was the 25th anniversary, and artists who'd been regular go-to acts in the past decade or so were plentiful, and that was to be expected. But the stagnant performer list has been the norm for some time. It is my understanding (though I could be wrong) that booking is currently done by one person. I think that it's the kind of task that could be better taken on by a full committee who can all contribute their varying tastes and battle it out to keep the performer list diverse and interesting for festival-goers from 10 to 100.
But in case you couldn't tell, I'll still be going back for music each year regardless of who's playing.
