The National Folk Festival is facing some tough questions about its plans for Nashville this year. Last summer the downtown music festival didn’t go as well as organizers had hoped, and what they’ll do this year is unclear.
The national festival moves from city to city in three-year stints, and 2012 was slated to be its second year in Nashville. Last summer it struggled here, maybe in part because the aftermath of the flood a year prior hurt fundraising efforts. And the weather over Labor Day weekend didn’t help, with highs near a hundred degrees cutting into attendance.
It’s not the first time the moving festival had a soft opening year in a new city. When Richmond, Virginia started hosting the National Folk Festival in 2005, it rained. But the event powered through over the next few years, and now a local spin-off of the festival can draw 200 thousand people.
For Nashville this year, right now the headline for the festival’s web site still refers to 2011. So does its Facebook page, where one commenter asks, ‘Is this festival happening in 2012?’
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An organizer with the folk festival says an announcement is due out in the next few days.
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