Richmond Folk Festival 2015 by the numbers

This year’s Folk Fest—with its optimal weather and supercool headliner—sure did break some records!

October 14, 2015; 11:54 AM • by Susan Howson

Photo by: Heaton Johnson V

Folk Festival attendance, in thousands, 2005-2015

The 11th year just wrapped–or the eighth year, depending on how you look at it. The Folk Fest began as just the National Folk Fest, which is a weird thing to say, but it means that we used to host the national version, and then we began ours as sort of an arm of it. You can see from the below graph that We are now back up to our highest point, after a couple of years of poor weather made the numbers drop.

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Number of volunteers, 2006-2015

Highest number of volunteers yet! This is kind of astounding! It’s almost like people think that if they volunteer, they can get in for free! JK, the ENTIRE THING IS FREE! I overheard a lady talking in the doctor’s office waiting room about how she volunteers every year and it is the most fun thing she does, so apparently it is worth your while. More than 1500 people either agree or were forced into donating their time, who can tell?

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Donations collected by the Bucket Brigade, in thousands, 2006-2015

Those volunteers in the Bucket Brigade were happy and cheerful enough (despite possible conscription–see above) to convince you to drop your hard earned cash in the bucket. Who even has cash these days?? It’s impressive that in 2015, the Folk Festival was able to raise close to $120,000 in those buckets. Setting the bar high for next year, that’s our jam.