Not just plain folk
Sep. 9th, 2013 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterThe Ottawa Folk Festival is over for another year. While there were certainly some things I would praise about it - most notably, the extensive free section - overall, I found that it was something of a mess of contradictions and not as good as it could have been.
I'll start with the ordering process. Miraculously (considering my 15-year-old computer equipment), that went very quickly and efficiently. I got the early-bird rate on the entire festival, and tickets were mailed to me in August as promised. There was even a $5 voucher good on festival merchandise, something I had not expected (though I also have a quibble about them which I'll mention later).
The area around the main gate was very easy to get to and there was plenty of free parking at the Canada Post parking lot; we have a direct bus there too (the 118) and in a pinch, we could even have walked to the site. Cyclists, on the other hand, did not seem to be so lucky. The festival made a big deal about being environmentally friendly, yet the cycle-path through the park was closed for the duration. Moreover, no bicycles were allowed on the festival grounds and there were stern warnings that bicycles must not be locked to the fence surrounding the site. Instead, cyclists were urged to take advantage of the free "valet bike parking" service. I've no idea how that went - seems to me, one of the main ideas of cycling there is that you can come and go as you please, rather than being hampered by available bus service and routes or other arranged transportation. I wonder how long they had to cycle around finding the bike "valets" or how far it was to walk from wherever they were allowed to leave their bikes!
I was pleasantly surprised that there were no long lineups at the main gate either. Evidently they managed to get enough volunteers - quite remarkable in itself, since the poor people probably had to spend hours of additional time waiting for their police-checks and all the other bureaucratic procedures that are demanded of volunteers these days. But I didn't like their admission system. As one attendee near the main gates on Saturday remarked, "I don't know why they have to make a simple folk festival so complicated!"
The original plan had been to provide wristbands to people attending the entire festival, so that you could come and go as you pleased. Well, apparently they did have YOUTH wristbands for those under 21 but for some reason ("circumstances beyond our control" was the phrase I think they used), adults over 21 were given a ticket for each day of the festival. If you wanted to leave the paid-admission part of the festival and come back later in the day, you had to be scanned out at any of the exits, and scanned in again at the main gate.
Then there was security. All bags had to be examined at the main gate before you went in. And the list of no-nos was UNBELIEVABLE! No "cameras with removable lenses" (that's pretty limiting). No "larger" purses. No uncollapsible chairs. No hard-sided coolers or glass containers. And get this - no beachballs! I would have thought beachballs would be ideal, because you could deflate them, reinflate them on site, toss them around to your heart's content, at least in the more open areas, without worrying that they'd get in anyone's way or injure anyone (because they're soft) and deflate them and put them back in your bag before you leave. Isn't that an ideal toy to keep the kids amused? Fortunately I had read the FAQs on the website before venturing out but whatever are people expected to do if they don't use a computer? Certainly, these things were not mentioned when the tickets were mailed out - surely it would have been easy enough to enclose an information sheet with them!
The free area of the festival was in many ways more appealing than the paid-admission area. There were several smaller stages there, as well as a fair variety of food-and-drink vendors and picnic tables. Bringing your own food was allowed too, as long as it didn't involve alcohol and was not packaged in a hard-sided cooler. That contrasted sharply with the paid side, which had a few booths selling food and beverages but not much space to sit and consume them. The only sit and consume-on-premises place on the paid side was a beer tent. We got some very nice cappuccinos at a fair-trade coffee shack but had to walk around with them. Seems to me they should rightfully have had at least as many coffee-tents as beer tents, since the whole folk music scene grew up out of the coffee houses! I will admit that the beer was quality, craft-type beer as Mill Street microbrewery was one of the festivals' major sponsors. The free area also had an artisans' alley. That we found a little disappointing - what was there was quite nice, but there didn't seem to be the variety of merchandise or price points that I remembered from previous years. On the paid side there was a "general store" with Festival-branded merchandise as well as CDs by performers at the festival; that brings me to the quibble I had with the $5 voucher. Turned out you COULDN'T use it on CDs. I looked at the clothing, saw nothing under about $25 even for a simple T-shirt and ended up not using my voucher at all. Would it have killed them to extend the offer to the other things they were selling there? It might have meant more people taking chances on CDs by relatively unknown artists. I did buy an Amanda Rheaume CD while I was there but if I'd been allowed to use the voucher, I might have been tempted to buy a few more CDs from them!
Particularly on Saturday and Sunday during the day, the free area had quite a bit to offer families with young children as well as the young at heart. There was a "percussion tree" hung with pots and pans and other utensils; a musical instrument "petting zoo", and a mural that anyone was welcome to add to. Saturday's programme featured an interview with astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Of course, the main event was the music. When I bought our passes, of course, I was expecting that Neil Young would be there. Still, I think we got our money's worth with Patti Smith, Lynn Miles, Gordon Lightfoot and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Knowing Patti Smith was coming to the festival also inspired me to read "Just Kids", her award-winning memoir of her life in New York in the 1960s and 70s, in particular her relationship with the late artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. I also enjoyed the Saturday afternoon tribute to Chopper McKinnon, which was held in the free area of the festival (though we didn't stay for all of it - the weather was a little iffy and we were both tired). Sound-bleed problems were less evident than when we last went to the festival but still apparent in some instances. For example, on Friday evening, Beth Orton at the Tartan Homes stage was drowned out by some rap or hip-hop guy even though he was at a stage some distance away; while he undoubtedly brought in money for the festival, I didn't really think he was a good folk-festival choice in the first place, even if I had wanted to listen to him! But I guess that's what you get for letting the Bluesfest manager take over Folkfest. Mark Monahan may well be a better businessman than aging folkies like Chris White or Gene Swimmer but you need both the business-smarts AND the taste for folk music and its associated culture in order to run a decent festival and also make a go of it!
Some additional things I would have liked to see on the smaller stages: some more tribute-type performances, along the lines of the "spirit of Rasputins" ones that we saw two or three years ago (though we did run into Dean Verger there), perhaps a tribute to Stompin' Tom and to people who performed at Ottawa institutions like Le Hibou, Roosters, the University of Ottawa's equivalent to that, Homegrown Cafe... and as mentioned above, a couple of coffee tents where we could have sipped coffee, tea, hot apple cider and other nonalcoholic beverages while listening to the music.
Should I go again next year? I don't know. If there's no big-name headliner who interests me, I might just limit myself to the free areas. Of course, that may prove a self-defeating strategy in the long run if everyone else has the same idea, since presumably it's the big names who make the rest of the festival possible. We shall see...
I'll start with the ordering process. Miraculously (considering my 15-year-old computer equipment), that went very quickly and efficiently. I got the early-bird rate on the entire festival, and tickets were mailed to me in August as promised. There was even a $5 voucher good on festival merchandise, something I had not expected (though I also have a quibble about them which I'll mention later).
The area around the main gate was very easy to get to and there was plenty of free parking at the Canada Post parking lot; we have a direct bus there too (the 118) and in a pinch, we could even have walked to the site. Cyclists, on the other hand, did not seem to be so lucky. The festival made a big deal about being environmentally friendly, yet the cycle-path through the park was closed for the duration. Moreover, no bicycles were allowed on the festival grounds and there were stern warnings that bicycles must not be locked to the fence surrounding the site. Instead, cyclists were urged to take advantage of the free "valet bike parking" service. I've no idea how that went - seems to me, one of the main ideas of cycling there is that you can come and go as you please, rather than being hampered by available bus service and routes or other arranged transportation. I wonder how long they had to cycle around finding the bike "valets" or how far it was to walk from wherever they were allowed to leave their bikes!
I was pleasantly surprised that there were no long lineups at the main gate either. Evidently they managed to get enough volunteers - quite remarkable in itself, since the poor people probably had to spend hours of additional time waiting for their police-checks and all the other bureaucratic procedures that are demanded of volunteers these days. But I didn't like their admission system. As one attendee near the main gates on Saturday remarked, "I don't know why they have to make a simple folk festival so complicated!"
The original plan had been to provide wristbands to people attending the entire festival, so that you could come and go as you pleased. Well, apparently they did have YOUTH wristbands for those under 21 but for some reason ("circumstances beyond our control" was the phrase I think they used), adults over 21 were given a ticket for each day of the festival. If you wanted to leave the paid-admission part of the festival and come back later in the day, you had to be scanned out at any of the exits, and scanned in again at the main gate.
Then there was security. All bags had to be examined at the main gate before you went in. And the list of no-nos was UNBELIEVABLE! No "cameras with removable lenses" (that's pretty limiting). No "larger" purses. No uncollapsible chairs. No hard-sided coolers or glass containers. And get this - no beachballs! I would have thought beachballs would be ideal, because you could deflate them, reinflate them on site, toss them around to your heart's content, at least in the more open areas, without worrying that they'd get in anyone's way or injure anyone (because they're soft) and deflate them and put them back in your bag before you leave. Isn't that an ideal toy to keep the kids amused? Fortunately I had read the FAQs on the website before venturing out but whatever are people expected to do if they don't use a computer? Certainly, these things were not mentioned when the tickets were mailed out - surely it would have been easy enough to enclose an information sheet with them!
The free area of the festival was in many ways more appealing than the paid-admission area. There were several smaller stages there, as well as a fair variety of food-and-drink vendors and picnic tables. Bringing your own food was allowed too, as long as it didn't involve alcohol and was not packaged in a hard-sided cooler. That contrasted sharply with the paid side, which had a few booths selling food and beverages but not much space to sit and consume them. The only sit and consume-on-premises place on the paid side was a beer tent. We got some very nice cappuccinos at a fair-trade coffee shack but had to walk around with them. Seems to me they should rightfully have had at least as many coffee-tents as beer tents, since the whole folk music scene grew up out of the coffee houses! I will admit that the beer was quality, craft-type beer as Mill Street microbrewery was one of the festivals' major sponsors. The free area also had an artisans' alley. That we found a little disappointing - what was there was quite nice, but there didn't seem to be the variety of merchandise or price points that I remembered from previous years. On the paid side there was a "general store" with Festival-branded merchandise as well as CDs by performers at the festival; that brings me to the quibble I had with the $5 voucher. Turned out you COULDN'T use it on CDs. I looked at the clothing, saw nothing under about $25 even for a simple T-shirt and ended up not using my voucher at all. Would it have killed them to extend the offer to the other things they were selling there? It might have meant more people taking chances on CDs by relatively unknown artists. I did buy an Amanda Rheaume CD while I was there but if I'd been allowed to use the voucher, I might have been tempted to buy a few more CDs from them!
Particularly on Saturday and Sunday during the day, the free area had quite a bit to offer families with young children as well as the young at heart. There was a "percussion tree" hung with pots and pans and other utensils; a musical instrument "petting zoo", and a mural that anyone was welcome to add to. Saturday's programme featured an interview with astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Of course, the main event was the music. When I bought our passes, of course, I was expecting that Neil Young would be there. Still, I think we got our money's worth with Patti Smith, Lynn Miles, Gordon Lightfoot and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Knowing Patti Smith was coming to the festival also inspired me to read "Just Kids", her award-winning memoir of her life in New York in the 1960s and 70s, in particular her relationship with the late artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. I also enjoyed the Saturday afternoon tribute to Chopper McKinnon, which was held in the free area of the festival (though we didn't stay for all of it - the weather was a little iffy and we were both tired). Sound-bleed problems were less evident than when we last went to the festival but still apparent in some instances. For example, on Friday evening, Beth Orton at the Tartan Homes stage was drowned out by some rap or hip-hop guy even though he was at a stage some distance away; while he undoubtedly brought in money for the festival, I didn't really think he was a good folk-festival choice in the first place, even if I had wanted to listen to him! But I guess that's what you get for letting the Bluesfest manager take over Folkfest. Mark Monahan may well be a better businessman than aging folkies like Chris White or Gene Swimmer but you need both the business-smarts AND the taste for folk music and its associated culture in order to run a decent festival and also make a go of it!
Some additional things I would have liked to see on the smaller stages: some more tribute-type performances, along the lines of the "spirit of Rasputins" ones that we saw two or three years ago (though we did run into Dean Verger there), perhaps a tribute to Stompin' Tom and to people who performed at Ottawa institutions like Le Hibou, Roosters, the University of Ottawa's equivalent to that, Homegrown Cafe... and as mentioned above, a couple of coffee tents where we could have sipped coffee, tea, hot apple cider and other nonalcoholic beverages while listening to the music.
Should I go again next year? I don't know. If there's no big-name headliner who interests me, I might just limit myself to the free areas. Of course, that may prove a self-defeating strategy in the long run if everyone else has the same idea, since presumably it's the big names who make the rest of the festival possible. We shall see...
