What if you have a festival and no one comes?
Jon Lohman, CCV executive director, poses that question in the recently released The Sounds of Culture: 20 Years of the Richmond Folk Festival, in response to the torrential rains that plagued the festival’s first year. Thankfully, the festival quickly weathered that storm and the city of Richmond has come out to the festival in ecstatic droves ever since.
Virginia Public Media, working in partnership with Venture Richmond and the Richmond Folk Festival, produced this television documentary for the 20th anniversary of the Richmond Folk Festival. Capturing footage of the 2023 Richmond Folk Festival, as well as interviews with staff, artists, volunteers and more, The Sounds of Culture sheds light on Richmond’s best festival and the country’s largest Folk Festival. The documentary is now available for streaming.
Each fall for 20 years, people from across the country converge on downtown Richmond’s Riverfront for the Richmond Folk Festival. The tradition began in 2005 when the city and Venture Richmond hosted The National Folk Festival, which reflected “the ongoing national pursuit to fulfill the country’s founding principles of equality, liberty, and justice for all people” (via the National Council for the Traditional Arts). CCV is a proud producing partner of this festival, working closely with the Virginia Folklife Program at Virginia Humanities to produce its beloved Virginia Folklife Area.
“The Richmond Folk Festival celebrates our country’s diverse culture with food, storytelling, dance, crafts and music,” said VPM’s chief content officer and executive producer Steve Humble. “The Festival is a tremendously popular tradition in Richmond and we’re excited to share some of the stories behind how it began and what it means to the community.”
The Sounds of Culture: 20 Years of the Richmond Folk Festival weaves the story of the Festival’s history into the broader image of today’s festival. The documentary chronicles the numerous stages, folk-life areas and public participation around the expansive festival grounds, with music at the center point of the narrative.
