REGINA – The 44th annual Regina Folk Festival wrapped up Sunday night and the weekend-long event has raked in record-breaking numbers.
“We consider a sold out evening to be about 4500 people and on Friday night we sold 4100 tickets. Saturday night, I do believe we sold out,” said Andrew Huculak, president of Regina Folk Festival.
Thirty-thousand people walked the grounds at City Square Plaza throughout the weekend — forty per cent of which were from places outside Regina like Wisconsin, Tennessee, and New York.
The event featured dozens of local food vendors, as well as over 45 market stalls. But this year, there was a change of scenery for the latter.
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“Last year we were in the general pathway of the festival,” said Erin Cembel from EMK Clothing.
The stalls are now where the Farmer’s Market is located twice a week. Cembel has put up shop at this festival for three years and moving locations hasn’t affected her sales, but she says the feeling just isn’t right.
“I definitely prefer being in the trees. It felt like we were more at a Folk Festival. Now it feels more like an open air market,” said Cembel.
But the Folk Fest committee said it’s something they had to do.
“It’s worked out for us because of the constraints that we were facing in the past,” said Huculak. “Because of the size of crowds we get, it’s now levitated to some extent by virtue of the extra space we have,” he added.
The weekend event at Victoria Park accounted for extra traffic in the downtown core. Nearby shops like The Copper Kettle were busier than usual.
“We’re always prepared because it can go from zero to a full house in a matter of five minutes,” said Shawn Dubois, a server at The Copper Kettle.
Organizers hope to iron out some kinks when it comes to logistics, so they can utlize the space more efficiently next year.
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