45th Annual Kent State Folk Festival

This week marks the 45th annual Kent State Folk Festival. It's been moved up from November, where it has taken place for some years now. Once upon a time, it used to take place in February, a month that, although the shortest in the year, always seems to be the longest because it's the middle of winter and is characterized by monochromatic colors, black, white and grey. And cabin fever sets in to the point where I can't wait until the snows finally melt and I can stop bundling up in multiple layers of clothing and get outside. Having the festival during that long dark month always broke up the monotony of the worst month of the year. But then, the University decided to stop funding it, so our local NPR station decided to take it over and they moved it to September in an attempt to involve the student population. Unfortunately, they moved it up against an arts festival held in a local park that typically attracts musicians and artists, so nobody went to the folk festival as a result. Then they moved it to late November, only that ended up being too close to Thanksgiving and once again, attendance suffered, so this year they moved it back to September, but late enough in the month not to conflict with any other major events. The problem with the festival since the university stopped funding it and since it began being funded by local corporate sponsors is that the whole format of the festival has changed. Times were that it was both Friday and Saturday, with free community workshops on both days, held at the Kent State Student Center (where the workshops are still held now) followed by a main stage concert held at the old University Auditorium (now the newly renovated Cartwright Hall auditorium). The concerts usually consisted of about six acts that performed for about 20 minutes, so you got a good variety of talent for the evening. The workshops basically took over the entire third floor of the Student Center, with every single room in use and the hallways filled with jammers. It was noisy, wonderful and exciting, but I guess the Fire Department put the kibosh on the hall jams. Fine, as long as rooms were opened up where people could go. However, now instead of offering the choice of about a dozen workshops per hour like they used to, now it's down to about three. Instead of six main stage acts for the concert, it's one act and usually some very big name star like Judy Collins, so I think they are putting more of their money on the main stage concert as opposed to anything else. This year, they didn't even offer a festival T-shirt, so I am assuming that this year's greatly reduced festival must be due to the economy or something because this was the smallest festival they've ever offered. The big main stage concert, instead of being tonight after the workshops that happened today, is tomorrow night, a bad night if you are in school or at work and have to go to bed early. I haven't bought a ticket yet because I am assuming that since the act tomorrow night is Peter Yarrow, once upon a time of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, that it will be beyond my budget to afford since that is such a big name. If I had to guess, I'd say the festival organizers blew their wad paying for tomorrow night's concert instead of spreading around the money equally, because for the first time that I could remember, they were shilling for money at the workshops today and I never remember them having a donation jar in every room and asking people to help defray festival costs. Well, must be that the economy is so bad that the festival is in financial trouble, because when they start asking for donations to pay for the cost of it, that doesn't bode well in my mind. We'll see what happens next year but if they keep chopping away at the festival and instead put their money on the main stage act instead of spreading it around equally, then I will know that this festival is going to have to change the way it does business. I plan to write to the festival organizers to voice my views on all of this. Whether they pay attention, I don't know if they'll listen but....can't hurt to try, anyway. I did have fun today at the workshops, though, so it wasn't a total disappointment!