We live near the Prince’s Island in Calgary that is a popular place for different events in the summer. One of the most known is the Folk Festival that has been held in Calgary already 34 years. We had bought the tickets already early on to find out what the festival will be like and get acquainted with the local music scene. Finally last Thursday it started and lasted until Sunday.

Since none of the bands on the festival were familiar to us, we did not set a schedule based on who we want to see. Rather we figured out what times we’ll be able to just hop in and see what is going on. Thursday we went there straight after yoga class and were anticipating a pint of beer and a nice fast food meal. Big was our disappointment when we discovered that beer was only sold at a beer garden and the queue to get in was 45 min. long. We consoled ourselves with Mediterranean style pita with lamb and chicken (that was the shortest queue for food), but it did not really quench the thirst. Two stages were open that night and the music that came from both of them, did not appeal to us the least bit. We thought that probably they’ve reserved the not so good bands for the first evening and better ones will be Friday and Saturday. So there was really no reason for us to be at the festival that night any more and we moved ourselves to our trusted local – Buchanan’s and had a nice pint there instead.

Our hopes were up for Friday. Firstly we expected better bands – Friday is a big night in Estonia, secondly we hoped that the festival organisers and the beer sellers saw their erroneous ways and the money lying on the floor and decided to open some more places for purchasing beer. But just in case, we had a quick pint after the gym at a local nearby the festival and also grabbed a meal. Standing in line for either is not really our favourite pastime, especially after the gym. And very good that we did, at least we were not so disappointed any more when we entered the festival premises and saw the beer line had not become any shorter and the food trucks were also sporting high demand. Unfortunately the bands that played Friday night were firstly not our taste at all and secondly, they had really bad musical technicians who could not set up the sound without cacophony. We were out of premises much faster than the night before.

Saturday came and the weather was nice and we had the all-days-pass for the festival, so we geared up again, but went prepared: nice meal at home and a thermos full of cold white wine in our backpack, off we went with our Ikea bags and towels to find a spot and enjoy. We set ourselves down at the main stage and finally heard some really nice music – a Scottish lass was singing and she had a lovely voice and great lyrics to accompany the nice music. We were happily spread on the ground, enjoying the sunshine and sipping our wine from teacups. Vivé la prohibition! (some of you know what that means, but those who don’t – when North America decided to fight against alcoholism and prohibited selling of alcohol in public institutions in 1920s, people used to put home-made bootleg alcohol in tea cups and pretend they were drinking tea. See more here.) The beer queue was still intact, there were lots of really thirsty people who were willing to stand in line for hours to get into the promised land and never leave to the great dismay of the people outside.

When we went in on Sunday, it was mainly for some bands we wanted to see – we had bought some CD’s on trust and they happened to be very good, so we went to see them. We did not take any alcohol with us this time, since we decided that if the bands are that good, we don’t really need it. Big was our surprise when we did not see lots of people on the festival grounds and most importantly there was no beer line. We could not help ourselves, but were drawn into the promised land that had escaped us for three days to find out how special it must be. There were tables and chairs everywhere and lots of empty spaces. First we had to get our alcohol tickets – 1 ticket for 1 pint or glass of wine or sangria and 3 tickets for a pitcher of beer. We tried some sangria, but decided to stick to beer after we had found a nice place to sit close to the stage where the band we wanted to see – Blind Boy Paxton was coming to play. They were actually jamming with other singers and the music was great! Two pitchers later, when the band had changed and music started to sound more like noise again, we decided it’s time to move and see what’s going on other stages. The other bands weren’t anything to write home about and we decided to leave, finally convinced that it is a good festival, if you catch the right band and get let into the beer garden.

On Monday, my husband found an article in the local newspaper with a title: It’s a festival let there be beer. Thank God, we thought, we are not the only ones who think this way – spoiled by the readily available beer on every festival in Europe. It turns out that Calgary has not quite got over the thinking that people don’t know how to behave themselves and will definitely have a drunk fight fest instead of calm music listening when given access to alcohol. There is a law in place that you have to have one supervisor for every 50 people who come to the event – and that does not count security staff, in order to sell alcohol without consigning it to a guarded area. The costs of selling more probably outweigh the benefits. I doubt that they will change the law – the festival was sold out every day, so they don’t really have to change anything, unfortunately.