It was an exciting weekend in Montmartre’s Kemoca Regional Park as the 14th annual All Folk’d Up Music Festival kicked off. Spanning Friday to Sunday, the festival featured over 20 musical acts, artisans, food vendors and kid’s activities.
The festival was started as an idea in 2007 by the Fournier and Deringer sisters after a trip to the Winnipeg Folk Festival. It wasn’t until July of 2010 when that vision became a reality. The first annual All Folk’d Up Music Festival drew around 650 attendees.
Since 2010, the festival has expanded. According to Mitch Dureault the Festival Coordinator and Artistic Director, the event has become more than just a music festival. He said it has evolved into its own community.
“For me it’s kind of like a family reunion,” Dureault says. “I’ve never had a conversation where I didn’t feel like I was talking to someone I’ve known my whole life.”
The festival utilizes the aid of over 50 volunteers while musical acts are paid by sponsorships, grants and ticket sales from previous years. Almost every cent is reinvested back into the festival.
“The community of volunteers here and the folks that support the festival are some of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met,” Dureault says. “Everyone wants you to succeed in your position.”
In his second year as Festival Coordinator and first year as Artistic Director, Dureault admits the position was a bit daunting at first but the support he’s received from the community has helped him settle into his role and enjoy his time in charge of the festival. Dureault says the hardest part of his job was picking musical acts for this year’s line up.
“So I’m looking for a few key things and that would be across various genres,” Dureault explains. “Of course we are a folk festival so we’re looking for things like bluegrass musicians, old time musicians, country and pop musicians in there as well. We get the odd jazz group or R&B once in a while.”
As a fellow musician, Dureault utilizes his connections to tap talent for the festival.
“It’s to the point where it is so hard because we have so many incredible acts across the province and of course our neighbors in Alberta and Manitoba,” Dureault explains. “Of course every year you want it to be a little different but you could easily have a list of over 100 folks who would just be stellar.”
It’s the talent that spurred local resident Janet Kotylak and her husband to attend the first festival 14 years ago. This year, they attended for another milestone – a 40 year class reunion.
“We’ve had a lot of fun,” Kotylak says. “We had some of the entertainers come by our campfire last night and sing and play for us so that was a real highlight for us so far.”
Like Kotylak, Ron and Donna Jacob were drawn to the festival by the music. They have been returning to the event for the past five or six years and believe it’s both the music and the camaraderie that lure people back year after year.
“I would say it’s very family oriented,” Ron Jacob says. “I think when they have a bigger name and a band it really brings people in. Some of the people this year are more Saskatchewan talent which is very good talent.”
“In my opinion there’s a lot of hidden gems in here that I know because I’m pretty well connected in the music scene in the province,” Dureault says. “There are a lot of folks that may not have come across them if it weren’t for performing at All Folk’d Up. Everyone on the list for the festival for this weekend I hired because they’re great humans first of all and just stellar musicians. There’s some of the best regional talent this side of the country in my opinion that attended this weekend.”
With the exception of one or two artists, the line-up for this year’s event was all Saskatchewan talent. This local talent included Saskatchewan artist Bernadine Rotter who created the poster for this year’s event.
