BANGOR, Maine — It’s easy to overlook the preparations that go into the American Folk Festival.
In its fifth year as a locally produced event — it was preceded by a three-year run in Bangor of the National Folk Festival — the festival, many assume, is a well-oiled machine running on autopilot.
Well-oiled machine perhaps. Autopilot? Not so much.
“It’s really a Herculean effort that goes into planning this,” executive director Heather McCarthy said Tuesday. “It’s not easy.”
Tents — 76 in all, according to Jim McCandless of the New Brunswick supply company in charge — have been sprouting up along the Bangor side of the Penobscot River since Monday. The bigger tents go up first so staging and sound systems can be brought in later in the week, which is a whole other mind-boggling logistical operation.
Craft and food vendors also will arrive later in the week as will, of course, the musicians.
By Friday morning, the area between Summer Street and Washington Street will be transformed to handle a surge of tens of thousands of visitors during the three-day event that begins Friday and runs through Sunday.
“It is an incredible undertaking. I don’t think people could fully appreciate just how enormous the demands are on the staff,” said John Diamond, a member of the festival’s board of directors.
Some things are likely to look a little different this year than in years past, organizers said.
A portion of the area starting at Railroad Street and extending down the waterfront toward the Veterans Remembrance Bridge is now paved for easier pedestrian movement. Water and electrical infrastructure has been installed underneath the ground as part of the city’s overall upgrade to its waterfront.
Also, for the first time, the folk festival will take over management of the beer and wine tents, essentially to cash in on revenue by removing a third-party operator. Alcohol sales for the event have averaged more than $30,000 in revenue annually, and that’s money the folk festival sorely needs.
Amid all the logistic planning that goes into the days and weeks preceding the event are the financial obligations associated with the American Folk Festival. McCarthy said this year has been, by far, the most difficult in terms of fundraising.
“I’m looking at things with much trepidation because we’re still pretty short,” she said.
The entire budget for the American Folk Festival is about $1.1 million. That total is made up of a number of sources. Roughly half comes from sponsorship and corporate donations, but they are fewer and smaller than in the past. Between this year and last, about $80,000 less has been collected from area business partners.
“I’ve talked with people who have said that this was a tough year and they couldn’t be as generous as in past years, but we also have had others step forward,” Diamond said. “Still, it’s been a challenge to raise money to keep the festival at the level we all expect and to keep it free.”
The folk festival did get an extra $10,000 from the city through the Commission on Cultural Development, bringing that total to $85,000. In the previous years, the folk festival received $75,000 from the city, which also lends staff from many departments — including public works, parks and recreation, police and fire, Bass Park, finance and code enforcement — to the effort.
Organizers anticipated a rough fundraising year and did something they haven’t done in previous years. They held a benefit concert in May with all proceeds going to benefit the festival. The response to that concert was good, but attendance was poor and it didn’t turn into a big moneymaker.
Yet with the financial trepidation there is some hope.
Attendance at the folk festival has generally increased every year that it has been held, and Diamond said he thinks this year could be even better as Mainers look for entertainment closer to home. More visitors could be a boon to what is known as the Bucket Brigade, something McCarthy called the heart of the festival’s fund-raising efforts.
Throughout the three days of the festival, volunteers patrol the festival grounds with buckets collecting individual donations. “It really makes people feel that they have an ownership of this event,” she said. “We feel strongly about keeping this event free for everyone.”
In 2005, the first year that the event was locally run, about $45,000 was raised by the bucket brigade. The next year, $61,000 was collected. In 2007, the bucket brigade raised $94,786 and last year a record $98,400 was collected.
Organizers have set an ambitious goal of $200,000 for this year’s bucket brigade. They won’t know if they have met that goal until the festival is over.
“Even an extra $1 or $2 per person would make a huge difference,” Diamond said. “Everybody who attends is wowed by it. Every bit of time and money spent is well worth it. This year, there is a lot public interest in [so called ] ‘staycations’ and this is a high-value, low-cost experience. It’s hard to beat it.”