WOODFORD FOLK FESTIVAL 2019/20 WRAP UP

The Woodford Folk Festival is held annually over six days and six nights from Dec 27th through to January 1st. More than 2,000 local, national and international, artists, musicians and presenters put on over 438 acts to an audience of an estimated 132,000 people. It is the largest gathering of artists and musicians in Australia.

The festival is held at the Woodfordia site, a beautiful piece of land nestled into the Woodford hinterlands. The festival village is built from scratch each year by contractors and volunteers. Once complete, the site becomes the 67th largest town in Australia. After the festival concludes on the 1st of January it is deconstructed and the site is lovingly regenerated for wildlife.

For me, the Woodford festival experience is like hitting a yearly reset button reminding me what is really important. The Woodford community is inclusive, creative and rich with culture and tradition, Once you are immersed in this, its hard not to feel a shift in perspective and a sense of freedom.

This year I returned to the festival as an event photographer. There is so much to see and do at Woodford that it would take a full year to enjoy it all and I struggled to pick only a few images to portray the week for this blog post. So here are just some of the highlights of the festival: concerts, dances, street theatre, craft workshops, circus performances, cabarets and parades.

Woodford really is a magical experience, I’m already counting down the days to next years festival!