{"id":586159,"date":"2026-04-05T02:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586159\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:09:10","slug":"lure-of-lively-celebration-outweighs-fuel-concerns-as-thousands-flock-to-60th-national-folk-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586159\/","title":{"rendered":"Lure of lively celebration outweighs fuel concerns as thousands flock to 60th National Folk Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the crowd at the National Folk Festival, Eamon Mary is hard to miss.<\/p>\n

“Someone said, ‘nice costume’ but I said, ‘Costume implies that I am dressing as something other than me,'” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I like dressing up silly.”<\/p>\n

He is one of thousands of attendees who have travelled to Canberra for the festival’s 60th year.<\/p>\n

“It’s good fun, it’s great craic,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There is music happening everywhere; every corner you come around there is something happening.”\"A<\/p>\n

The five-day festival features a wide variety of entertainment.\u00a0 (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n

With the cost of fuel skyrocketing, Mr Mary said it was “very expensive” to drive more than seven hours from Maryborough in Victoria to attend the festival.<\/p>\n

“It’s an extra couple of hundred bucks but I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.<\/p>\n

That sentiment was shared by other festival attendees, and organisers say high fuel prices haven’t affected crowd numbers.<\/p>\n

“No-one wanted to miss the 60th year,” according to co-artistic director Holly Downes.<\/p>\n

“Folks have found a way to get here, even if that is jumping on public transport, car pooling.<\/p>\n

“Where there is a will, there is a way.”\"A<\/p>\n

Thousands of people travelled to Canberra for the 60th National Folk Festival. (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n

Numbers up despite ‘challenging environment’\u00a0<\/p>\n

The festival was first held in Melbourne as a student-run event in 1967.<\/p>\n

It spent many years being held in other locations before finding a permanent home in Canberra in 1992.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Holly Downes says the festival is supported by a “large team of volunteers”.\u00a0 (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n

Ms Downes said while it was a “challenging environment”, attendance this year was up from last year.<\/p>\n

“We are looking forward to the next 60 years,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s really a community spirit and support of a large volunteer team that makes this event what it is.”<\/p>\n

The festival has faced challenges in recent years as a result of falling attendance and ticket sales, combined with rising costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Business slow for some stall holders\u00a0<\/p>\n

Business owner Aya O’Connell, who has a stall at the festival, said business had been slow.<\/p>\n

“Obviously they are not really trying to spend much for the things they don’t really need,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They just look but they don’t really want to spend. I can feel they are just trying to reserve the money for what they actually need.”<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Festival attendees take part in a Scottish country dance workshop. (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n

The five-day festival, featuring musicians, dancers and poets, has become an Easter tradition for many.<\/p>\n

“There is almost a group of people who identify as folkies and they all show up and they are like, ‘I am the most comfortable while I am here,'” one man said.<\/p>\n

“We come a day early, we leave a day late. It’s a gathering of family and friends,” another attendee said.<\/p>\n

The festival wraps up tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Among the crowd at the National Folk Festival, Eamon Mary is hard to miss. “Someone said, ‘nice costume’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[286883,2666,64,63,2667,286881,266256,134,7766,286882,286880],"class_list":{"0":"post-586159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-60th","9":"tag-act","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-canberra","13":"tag-eamon-mary","14":"tag-easter","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-festival","17":"tag-holly-downes","18":"tag-national-folk-festival"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}