What is the history of the Festival?
Following the success of hosting the National Folk Festival in Lowell for three years, 1987-1989, the producing partners and community continued the excitement with the Lowell Folk Festival in 1990. With hundreds of thousands of visitors attending annually, the experience is ever-changing. The four producing partners: The City of Lowell, the Lowell Festival Foundation, Lowell National Historical Park, and the National Council for the Traditional Arts, have continued organizing and presenting the Festival annually during the last full weekend in July. The National Folk Festival started in 1934 in St. Louis, MO. Since 1989, the National Folk Festival has continued to migrate around the country to Johnstown, PA; Chattanooga, TN; Dayton, OH; East Lansing, MI; Bangor, ME; and is now being hosted in Richmond, VA. What’s the Festival like? Most of Downtown Lowell becomes Festival grounds for the three days of the Festival. With six performance stages, some folks settle in for an afternoon or
