The Canmore Folk Music Festival is the longest running folk music festival in Alberta and one of its finest. Adhering to a philosophy and legacy of folk, world, blues and roots music, the festival since 1978 has attracted up to 21,000 music fans annually from across southern Alberta, western Canada, the northwestern USA and indeed the world.
Taking place over three days of the Heritage Day long weekend in August, the festival features 30+ individual acts or performers, family-friendly site, a free downtown concert on festival Friday evening, a kids’ area jammed with crafts, puppets, music, storytelling and a climbing wall. Its venue is the downtown Centennial Park in the heart of Canmore’s valley bottom. Surrounded on all sides by the majestic Rocky Mountains, the backdrop of breathtaking scenery merely enhances the incredible music pouring forth from four stages all weekend long.
The workshop stages partner up eclectic mixings of musicians from disparate and diverse backgrounds, often resulting in that ephemeral “lightning in a bottle” sound that will never be recreated twice.