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Date: 9/12/2022
EASTHAMPTON – Tickets are on sale for the fourth annual Arcadia Folk Festival on Sept. 17 at Mass. Audubon’s Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary at 127 Combs Rd. in Easthampton.
The outdoor musical event brings the community together around music in the heart of the Valley to celebrate and support the work at Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary and to model a sustainable community event. Musical performances are thanks to Mass Audubon’s partnership with Signature Sounds.
Tickets for the Folk Festival are $59.99 each and can be preordered online at https://www.arcadiafolkfest.com/vendors. Gates will open at 10 a.m. and the event goes until 6:30 p.m. The 2022 music lineup includes folk artists Bonny Light Horseman, Brett Dennen, Heather Maloney, Sunny War, Twisted Pine, Cloudbelly, Carrie Ferguson & The Grumpytime Club Band and much more.
Since 1944, Arcadia staff have been protecting habitats, connecting people of all ages to nature and advocating for sound environmental policies. This event will serve to engage more people with Arcadia’s mission, raise funds to help expand the reach of Mass Audubon’s ambitious Action Agenda in Western Massachusetts and celebrate the community’s support.
Director of Mass Audubon’s Connecticut River Valley and festival organizer Jonah Keane has been involved with the festival since its inception said it was originally created to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary. After the initial success of the festival, Keane and other event organizers felt in future events they could establish goals for educating the public on sustainable practices.
“It was such a success, people just loved it. The combination of this type of music and the beautiful nature setting really created a great energy that people loved, so we decided to continue it,” Keane said. “Now, one thing applied to our mission here at Audubon is we’re really trying to demonstrate how to run not just a music fest, but community events and larger events sustainably.”
This, plus the continued celebration of their work and bringing people together and introducing them to Mass Audubon’s work are all parts of why they continue to host the festival, according to Keane.
Keane said the event has been solar powered since the beginning, but they are now shifting focus on waste reduction. Food vendors at this year’s festival will be exclusively plant based, a big shift according to Keane who said the change will showcase the convenient option and its impact on the planet.
“It’s not in an effort to turn everyone into vegans, but really just to show how delicious the plant-based meal can be and that by switching just a couple of animal-based meals over to plant based can really increase our impact on the planet,” Keane said. “We’re just sharing how it’s possible.”
The featured vendors will be Abandoned Building Brewery, Crooked Sticks Pops, Dean’s Beans, Ginger Love Café, Holyoke Hummus, The Humble Peach and Vegan Pizza Land.
According to Keane, the festival will – for the first time – attempt to offset emissions from transportation from festival attendees. Keane said the best way to get to the festival is by bike, as there will be a free bike valet right near the event gate to make parking easy and allow bikers to avoid the half-mile walk from the off-site parking location. Everybody who rides to Folk Fest will also be entered to win a variety of prizes.
Keane added that carbon offsets will be purchased to mitigate emissions for those driving to the event and for the performers. General parking is in the Arcadia Meadows on 525 Old Springfield Rd. Limited accessible parking is available in the sanctuary parking lot for cars with disability plates or placards only.
Ticket sales and sponsors are the main portion of the fundraising done by Arcadia during the festival. The money raised goes toward supporting Mass Audubon’s work in the valley. Keane added much of the work being done is focused on addressing climate change, protecting conservation land, and increasing access to nature.
Being able to establish a community event like the Folk Festival has allowed for Arcadia to partner nature with the arts. While there will be musical performances throughout the day, craft vendors will also be on site selling their work.
“Arts and nature and closely intertwined. All different arts are. So, it’s our vibrant art in the valley, and our amazing natural spaces. It makes a lot of sense to combine those two here,” Keane said. “We didn’t quite realize how well it would work until we did it in practice, but it just seems like it makes perfect sense for this community.”