NATIONAL Folk Festival organisers are over the moon at news that they’ve been named Best Cultural, Arts and Music Event in the ACT in the Australian Event Awards.
Queensland’s Opera in the Reservoir by the Underground Opera Company and Victoria’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2015 won similar state-based awards.
The announcement follows news earlier this year that the Festival won Bronze at the Australian Tourism Awards.
Festival director Pam Merrigan is naturally chuffed saying, says, “The success of the festival is in the power of folk music and its ability to connect and engage people, offering an alternative to mainstream music that is often over produced and formulaic.”
Noting that event had been solidly in the national calendar for many years, she added, “The National Folk Festival celebrates its 50th Festival in 2016 and its longevity is due to the Festival continually expanding the notion of folk without compromising the integrity of the event as it reaches out to new audiences and responds to the challenges and demands of a growing and competitive festival industry.”
An established major event in Canberra’s cultural calendar for 23 of its years, the “National”, as it is known, attracts crowds upward of 46,000 to Canberra every Easter the Festival and injects over $5 million into the local economy, also bringing an A-list of international and national performers to the capital, organisers proudly boast.
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