After one night of this year’s festival was wiped out by a storm, Folk on the Rocks is launching a fundraising campaign to “help recover lost revenue and keep the festival strong, sustainable, and community-focused.”
The $10,000 fundraiser is being billed as the first of multiple initiatives designed to help the festival get back on its feet financially. It’ll “help us recover and continue building this event for years to come,” organizers said.
Yellowknife’s biggest annual music festival was already facing significant financial challenges. Organizers told the CBC this week they “can recover” after being $274,000 in the red prior to this year’s festival and owing nearly $400,000 before that.
Folk’s 2023-24 financial statements – the latest available online – show the festival lost around $150,000 that year.
The festival’s financial problems appear to have worsened significantly a year earlier, in 2022-23.
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That year, Folk changed its accounting practices, moving from a September-August financial year to an April-March financial year.
As a result, 2023’s transitional-year filing shows only the period from September 2022 to March 2023, when there would have been almost no ticket sales. The festival lost nearly $200,000 in those seven months, with most of the expenses appearing in the “contractors” line item.
The loss of most of the Friday night at 2025’s festival was described as a “devastating” financial blow by organizers, who had to call off the Warm the Rocks event when lightning rolled through the site.
Friday’s abandonment cost the festival six hours of beer garden sales. Organizers have since asked people who had a ticket for that night to “donate it back” to the festival by simply taking no action rather than requesting a refund.
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“Your support helps us recover from this year’s unexpected weather cancellations and continue bringing music and art to our community,” read a statement from organizers to ticket-holders on Monday night.
A November fundraiser is in the works, the same message to ticket-holders stated, and a sale of “extra-discounted 2026 festival tickets” is coming up in the fall.
Organizers said the money raised through the new fundraiser will not just cover costs but also support year-round artist and youth programming, “keep ticket prices accessible and artists on our stages,” and build a “more weatherproof experience” in 2026.
“Every single dollar makes a difference,” organizers stated.
“If you’ve ever danced in the sand, discovered your new favourite band, or felt the magic of the Yellowknives Dene Drummers closing out the festival under the midnight sun, we’d be so grateful if you could pitch in and help us bounce back.”
