The Uranquinty Folk Festival returned for its 48th year this long weekend, bringing folk music fans from every corner of Australia together for four days of fun.
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With concerts, dances, campfire sessions, poetry, workshops, candlelit dinners, and all sorts of games, there really was something for everyone.
Wagga Folk Society president Heather Hunter said this year’s festival drew people in from as far as Queensland, the Northern Territory, and even Western Australia.
“We’ve had an amazing array of talent, a lot of variety, some young acts, some more seasoned acts, and everything has just run so beautifully,” Ms Hunter said.
“It was a good year – I think we’ve had more people here and more young people, which is what we want, because we want them to carry on the tradition for future festivals.”
Ms Hunter said many of this year’s festival-goers had been coming for many years, if not decades, and often saw each other at multiple folk gatherings throughout the year.
“It really is a folk family and we all catch up depending on how many festivals you go to – it might be nine or 10 in a year – and we catch up on all our news and families,” she said.
One of the most committed members of that huge folk family is Linton Vogel.
Mr Vogel has now driven to Uranquinty from Cudgewa in Victoria for almost every festival over the last 20 years.
“The folk family do travel around most of the near folk festivals – it’s a great community and they look after one another,” Mr Vogel said.
“They all know one another, so it’s like a meeting place, and because most of us play music or are big music fans, we all play songs with one another around the campfire.”
Ms Hunter said she and her organising committee are already thinking up creative ways to celebrate the festival’s 50th anniversary in a couple years’ time.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED THIS WEEKEND?
