Second major pavilion drops out of Saskatoon’s 2024 Folkfest

Another major pavilion will be absent from this summer’s Folkfest in Saskatoon.

After the announcement earlier this week that the Ukrainian Karpaty Pavilion won’t be at the summer festival due to rising costs and declining attendance, the manager of the Scottish Pavilion said its board had to make the same decision.

“With the rising costs of running the pavilion and decreasing attendance over the past couple of years, our board made the hard decision to not host a pavilion this year,” Jayna Munson explained.

“This is a really hard decision that we’ve made. We love being a part of Folkfest.”

The Scottish Pavilion has been a part of the summer festival for 41 years.

Munson said volunteers at the pavilion logged 480 hours in 2023 in the kitchen alone, and it’s always a challenge finding enough volunteers to keep the pavilion running.

“Some of our staple volunteers that helped every year have had to decrease the amount of volunteering they can offer us,” she said. “Of course there’s new people coming in, and that’s great, but we’re always looking for volunteers.”

But while the pavilion’s highland dancing, live music and traditional food and drink will be absent from this year’s festival, Munson said organizers are working hard to make a return to Folkfest next year.

“We are making plans for a successful 2025 pavilion,” Munson said.

She said the Scottish community in the city will miss the annual event dearly.

“We love coming together to celebrate our culture together with the pipe bands, with the Celtic bands and with the dancers, and it’s always unfortunate if we miss those opportunities to get together,” she said.

“But we have been doing different events throughout the year together that are smaller. You can check out our Facebook pages to hear about those.”

Ukrainian dancers perform at River Landing in Saskatoon. (Ukrainian Karpaty Pavilion YXE/Facebook)

Folkfest still running in 2024

Folkfest’s board president, Kishore Gali, says it is common for pavilions to take a break, noting that in the festival’s 45-year history, only two pavilions have participated every year.

“It’s not a sign of anything else going on, and the event will continue as planned,” he said in an interview with 650 CKOM.

While Gali acknowledged it can be an emotional decision for some groups to step back, it’s often necessary to rebuild volunteer numbers, especially since COVID-19.

“It’s huge resources, volunteer base, performers, everything. So a huge time commitment,” he said.

Gali said pavilions rely on 200 to 300 volunteers, and when there is a change in some of the key organizers, groups need to pause and “re-align their teams.”

The festival recently welcomed new groups as Saskatoon’s diversity increases, including the Iranian pavilion in 2020 and the Latin American and Nigerian pavilions set to debut this summer.

Saskatoon Folkfest runs from Aug. 15-17.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Brittany Caffet