It’s Here To Stay Organizers announce permanent folk festival on the Bangor Waterfront

While Bangor prepares for the 66th National Folk Festival in August to complete a three-year residency on the waterfront, plans are under way for a similar traditional arts and music festival to take place next summer. The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront in August 2005 will kick off what local festival organizers hope will be an annual event in the region, as well as a model for a larger approach to the city’s creative economy plan.

The name for Bangor’s new festival was announced Friday night at a champagne reception at the Bangor Daily News. At the same time, the new logo, which was created by the NEWS graphics design team of Eric Zelz, Jonathan Ferland and Shelley Sund, was unveiled to applause.

“The festival is a window into the city, not only what it has been but what it is willing to be,” said Michael Crowley, chairman of the Bangor folk festival and vice president of Eastern Maine Charities. “In its heart, Bangor can be every bit as cosmopolitan as any area of the country. Yet we don’t have to be like other cities. We can be unique as Mainers in Bangor and expand our opportunities in that way.”

Heather McCarthy, executive director of the Bangor festival, added that the new name captures the essence of the city and the country.

“By having that two-part nature,” said McCarthy, “we’re telling our festival-goers that we are not diminishing our vision. When you see that vision in the name of the event, it literally brings that vision home. That’s part of its charm.”

As a locally produced, free event, the American Folk Festival will capitalize on the beauty of the waterfront, while bringing revenue to local businesses and engaging hundreds of local volunteers, said organizers. Bangor has broken records for being the smallest city ever to host the National, which is produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts in Washington, D.C., and for having the highest attendance at opening concerts – 10,000 on the first night in 2002.

Though its population base is smaller than Lowell, Mass., where the nation’s largest free folk festival is held each year, Bangor, with a population of just under 32,000, has drawn large crowds to the National. Last summer, more than 100,000 people attended the festival in Bangor. Lowell, with a population of 105,000, draws about 200,000 to its weekend festival each year.

Key to the success of the American Folk Festival, said planners, is an artistic reach that continues to draw from artists and craftspeople across America. The funding reach must also expand, said Crowley. In addition to cultivating private and public support statewide, organizers are pursuing corporate sponsorship from outside the state to contribute to the $900,000 annual cost. The festival committee also has hired a full-time director of development.

“It’s a serious statement that Bangor intends to have an American Folk Festival that will look and act very much as the National Folk Festival,” said John Rohman, past chairman and member of the festival’s executive committee in Bangor. “This is a commitment to make that continue. But what it really boils down to is production and money. We understand that to produce a festival like the National, we need people involved with the same capabilities as the National Council for the Traditional Arts. This should not become a ‘Maine Festival.’ There’s nothing wrong with that, but if the American Folk Festival is going to live up to our vision, it will remain a smorgasbord of everything across America. In order for this to be effective, we have to extend our financial goals to a national corporate level.”

Festival organizers intend to maintain the professional standards of the event by hiring the NCTA to co-produce the American Folk Festival. The Lowell Festival, which grew out of a National Festival residency in the 1980s, is also co-produced by NCTA. Discussions are under way to decide what part of the American Festival the NCTA will keep a hand in and what part the Bangor organizers will take over.

“We feel we’ve helped birth this baby,” said Julia Olin, associate director at the NCTA. “So naturally we are anxious to help in any way we can. We’re interested and excited at the prospect of this new festival.”

Olin said Bangor has proved itself capable and in only two years has established a good reputation among visiting artists, administrators and volunteers.

“Performers have commented a number of times that they found the Bangor audiences particularly warm, appreciative and attentive,” said Olin. “If you have happy artists and happy audiences, there’s a wonderful synergy that builds. I’d be hard-pressed to name a better audience than the one that has been in Bangor these last two years. So absolutely, if Bangor continues to put as much energy into a continuing festival as it has the National, it’s sure to be a big success. The type of festival the National is and that the new American will be resonate in the state and the region.”

While the National has raised the bar for cultural activity and discussions of creative economy among civic leaders, it and the American Folk Festival are best seen as making a contribution to a larger plan for the city and the region, said committee members.

“The American Folk Festival is not a silver bullet,” said Crowley, a former Bangor city councilor and past mayor. “But it will be a litmus test of our resolve to begin to shape our own destiny and to not blame someone else for where we are or are not headed. This is our chance to dare to think big, to think outside the box and believe there is something more than what we see today. It forces us to think differently about what this area will be 50 years from now.”

The board of directors arrived at the new name for the festival in January. The members considered a number of alternatives – including the Bangor Festival, the Penobscot Festival, the River Festival, the International Festival and the North Atlantic Festival – before deciding on the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront.

“Most of us are a blend of many cultures and traditions,” said Crowley, an Irish-Italian native of Millinocket. “We think the American Folk Festival name embodies that spirit.”

“Festival-goers are not going to see a difference in quality or entertainment, sound or scope of the event,” said McCarthy. “The only difference is that this one is ours and we get to keep it forever.”