Major storm forces Folk to abandon Warm the Rocks mid-show

Folk on the Rocks organizers told festivalgoers to evacuate the site at 8:30pm on Friday as a massive thunderstorm arced across the Yellowknife sky.

Warm the Rocks, which opens the festival, was formally abandoned at 9:40pm. Organizers had hoped to restart the event later in the evening, but ultimately had too few remaining volunteers to safely do so.

What had been isolated rolls of thunder earlier in the evening turned into sustained and deafening peals as the night wore on, with lightning taking out multiple power sources at the site.

Folk is Yellowknife’s biggest annual music festival. Friday night is known as Warm the Rocks, a smaller-scale set of performances limited to one stage at the Long Lake site ahead of the main weekend-long event.

Cabin Radio host Jesse Wheeler said he was walking into the site just before 8:30pm when he was stopped by a staff member.

“As I was walking in, the volunteer coordinator came up and said they were going to do a site evac,” Wheeler said.

He said he was told: “If you can get to a vehicle, go to your vehicle now.”

Multiple other Cabin Radio staff on site – the station broadcasts 30 hours of live coverage throughout the weekend – reported the site had been closed.

This isn’t the first time a storm has disrupted an event at the Folk on the Rocks site.

In July 2023, YK Pride’s Sunset Soiree at the same venue had to be aborted when a thunderstorm swept in.

The Folk on the Rocks refund policy states: “All ticket sales are final except in the situation of full event cancellation by Folk On The Rocks.”

Folk said late on Friday it was still finalizing how it would approach the night’s abandonment from a ticketing perspective.