Great Lakes Folk Festival cancels 2018

The Great Lakes Folk Festival – a local staple, under various names, for three decades – won’t be happening this summer.

That much seems definite. What people disagree on is what happens next.

To Marsha MacDowell, the festival co-founder, this will end the festival forever. “We have a fragile structure, to pull it off,” she said. There would be no way to put it back together.

To Mark Auslander, the MSU official who decided to drop it, this isn’t that drastic. Given a year off, he said, “we could broaden it and bring in a more diverse audience.”

Mark Meadows, the East Lansing mayor, sees some logic in that. “My observation is that it has been dropping in attendance,” he said. That could change “with a year off so they could re-imagine it.”

The MSU Museum and City of East Lansing issued a joint statement: "The MSU Museum has determined that the Great Lakes Folk Festival should be placed on a one-year hiatus during 2018. The City of East Lansing recognizes and understands that taking a pause to consider the long-term future direction of the festival, combined with the extensive construction in the downtown area, affords both the MSU Museum and the City an opportunity to continue to work together in a productive process in the months ahead. We look forward to a joint effort between the MSU Museum and the City of East Lansing in facilitating community conversations regarding a new version of this highly visible and popular festival."

Meadows sees it as “an opportunity”; folk fans disagree.

Ron Eggleston, who presented blues acts, said he was “kind of stunned.” Drew Howard, who was in two bands at last year’s event, said he was “devastated .... If they take this away, what’s next?”

Pat Power, who was the festival booker through last summer, echoed that. “It’s a sad day .... It’s really disheartening to see cultural events get taken away from people.”

Sally Potter, who created the “community sing” tent at the festival, called it “a very brash move by someone who’s new to the community.”

Auslander was appointed a year ago as head of the MSU Museum, which runs the festival. He took over on July 1, a month before the 2017 event.

“A lot of people love the festival and it’s kind of like an old shoe,” he said. Still, he said, there’s potential to include “some new kinds of acts with a different following, maybe a little edgier.”

Adding to that, Meadows said, are logistic problems, with a key site being used for construction. “There couldn’t be a better year to take some time off.”

Those problems had already been taken care of, MacDowell said. Adds Potter: “There are a lot of easy ways to address that. They could use Hannah (Community Center); they could use Valley Court Park.”

Another timing issue involves lining up the acts. Most had already been booked, MacDowell said, although the contracts hadn’t been sent out.

Already set were performers that do Puerto Rican, Finnish, Irish and African music, plus blues, old-time and klezmer. Individuals include a Hindustani vocalist and Sidiki Conde, an acclaimed West African singer and dancer. A 20-member Taiwan music group had booked its plane reservations.

The funding was already in place, MacDowell said. Dropping the festival for a year, Potter argued, has a permanent effect: “When you halt an event dead in its tracks, the event loses all momentum, sponsors, volunteers ... and, most of all, good will.”

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Meadows, however, feels some of that had already drained; a year of rethinking might revive it.

Back in 1987, MacDowell and her husband, Kurt Dewhurst, launched the Festival of Michigan Folklife, as part of the Michigan Festival. It did one summer alone, after the larger festival folded.

Then East Lansing landed the National Folk Festival, from 1999 to 2001. “It’s hard to compare anything to how successful that was,” Meadows said. “We had over 150,000 people every year.”

The national event moves every three years, hoping to leave a regional spin-off behind. In this case, the Great Lakes event began; MacDowell has estimated annual attendance at 80,000.

Budget cuts, however, eliminated evening concerts at Valley Court Park, the most popular portion with young audiences. The festival could no longer land such well-known acts as Natalie MacMaster, Ralph Stanley, Eileen Ivers, Doc Watson, Beausoleil and Cherish the Ladies.

“Even with the limited budget, I though Pat Power did a tremendous job of getting good acts.” Eggleston said.

That left a gap, he granted. When top blues acts – Guy Davis last year, Thornetta Davis (no relation) previously – performed, “there was some diversity, but the audience was mainly older white people.”

That can be addressed, Auslander said. “We can do a better job of reaching more people.”