Jasperites won’t be jamming like they usually do in September as the Jasper Folk Music Festival has been cancelled.
Cristin Murphy, executive director of the Jasper Folk Music Festival, said organizers were hoping to retool the festival as a welcome-back event for residents, but wildfires had ultimately impacted the community too much.
“As we first came back to town, we were feeling pretty positive that we could get there, but yeah, [it's] just a pretty large undertaking to figure out all those pieces,” Murphy said.
“We’re pretty sad to have to cancel, and all of our musicians have been very understanding, and it's our hope that we can carry over that same line-up to next year.”
The outdoor festival had originally been scheduled to take place in Commemoration Park on Sept. 6-7.
As Jasper begins the long road to recovery, many hotels are not yet available to host musicians travelling to town.
Murphy explained they also didn’t want residents who lost their homes to feel left out because they didn’t have a place to stay in Jasper.
In addition, Commemoration Park is already hosting the Re-Entry Support Centre, and the nearby Jasper Activity Centre was not ready to reopen to serve as a green room or offer washrooms for attendees.
The festival has messaged ticketholders to offer a refund, but ticketholders have the option to donate their ticket purchase to the Jasper Fire Caring Community Fund.
“We’ll be excited to announce, once we kind of have heard from everybody, how much money was donated from that to the Caring Community Fund,” Murphy said.
Revived in 2013, the Jasper Folk Music Festival is a continuation of the historic Jasper Heritage Folk Festival. It caps off the summer season for the mountain town of Jasper and caters to folk enthusiasts and live music junkies.
Although well attended, the festival has had a rocky history. It couldn’t run in 2017 due to construction at Centennial Park where it used to be hosted.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the festival to be cancelled in 2020 and 2021, and the Chetamon wildfire that cut power to Jasper for a week in 2022 delayed the event by a month.
Murphy admitted the wildfire this year was a major blow but noted the festival was run by volunteers and had a dedicated fanbase throughout Alberta and British Columbia.
“I do feel like we try and do something that’s for the community of Jasper so that everybody at the end of summer can have a nice celebration after working so hard,” she said.
“Our goal would be to keep it going, but yeah, it is really challenging, and I feel like a lot of festivals are kind of experiencing this in these times with fires.”
Murphy added that they were hoping to organize an alternative community event for later this year, but no details are confirmed.
