National Folk Festival: Bringing focus to the Canberra woodworking community

The National Folk Festival, the Capital’s bi-yearly celebration of art, music and culture came again this Easter long weekend. Having never been before, I decided to head out and see what all the noise was about.

The festival has been a tradition in Canberra since the early 1990s and sees thousands of people come to the event every year with an estimated 48,000 having attended this year.

The festival features a wide variety of things to see and do including live musical acts, dancing, various arts and crafts displays and even live gardening displays. In other words, there is something for everyone at the National Folk Festival.

The festival also acts as a great opportunity for local artists to get their art on display to the public. One such group, the Canberra Woodcraft guild, was in attendance at the festival and had some of the work on show.

Scott and Owen, two members from the guild spoke about the importance of the folk festival for their guild.

“We’ve been coming here for a while now, about 15 years,” Scott said.

“You get a lot of people coming every year, inter-state people as well. Buying the woodwork because they like it.

“We get a lot of repeat customers. So yeah we do get more people enquiring at the guild and an uptake in sales.”

Both men agreed that the festival is a huge event for the guild.

“From a sales point of yes it,” Scott said.

“This is probably our biggest event of the year because it’s over the four days.”

Holding up a wooden toy dog Owen went on to say, “I design and make all the toys we have on show here today, so that is about three weeks worth of work to get them ready.”

I only went to one day of the festival, but the National folk festival has something for everyone over the whole long weekend at is a great way to spend a day or the entire weekend.

But a heads up, take lots of money, it’ll run out quick.