Warren Folks Festival, Saturday, August 20, 2022. 30 Culbert Street, Warren, RI.
URIAH DONNELLY: The Warren Folks Festival is a one day music, art and food festival that’s put on by The Collaborative, which is a nonprofit arts organization in Warren. At its core it’s a day of fun, of good times, great music, great food and beer, wine–pretty much anything that you could want is available at this festival.
JAMES BAUMGARTNER: You’ll notice that one thing that sets this festival apart is that it’s not a Folk Festival, meaning it’s not just “folk music,” it’s a “Folks Festival.” And that extra “s” is important.
DONNELLY: We call it the Warren Folks with an S Festival because it was an excuse as well to throw a party for the people in Warren that are our friends and our colleagues to all get together and you know. Being as small as it is, there are different pockets of the town that don’t always overlap. But what I’ve noticed over the years is that this festival seems to draw from all the different pockets and it’s and that as well as outside of Warren and different places in the state and nearby Massachusetts. But it’s a great way that everybody, no matter what you believe or do or are, could come together and have fun in a safe environment.
BAUMGARTNER: There are ten musical acts performing on two different stages so that there’s never a break in the music. Nine of the ten acts are from Rhode Island, including Rafay Rashid [music: Rafay Rashid].
DONNELLY: The tenth is from Brooklyn, Mary Elaine Jenkins… so she’ll bring a band. [music: Mary-Elaine Jenkins].
DONNELLY: I’m particularly excited about the …in the middle of the mainstage lineup. It’s a sort of double bill, a Warren focused bill where Ernest Edwards who owns a barber shop in town, and is also a really prolific spoken word poet will do a short set, and then followed by a group, a new group called Honeysuckle Hill that features Lily Rhodes, who is a Warrenite. [music: Lily Rhodes].
BAUMGARTNER: There will be 36 different artists and craftspeople selling their wares at the festival.
DONNELLY: The art festival part of folks fest is a really nice sort of microcosm of all the different types of art and crafts that are being created by super talented people in Rhode Island.
BAUMGARTNER: The festival runs from one in the afternoon to eight in the evening, so you might get hungry while you’re there.
DONNELLY: I really wanted to sort of make the food part of this festival as interesting as the music or the art festival.
BAUMGARTNER: A few Warren restaurants will be represented, as well as vendors who have worked with Hope & Main, a culinary incubator in Warren. The festival takes place on the grounds of an old mill building on Cutler Street. Parking for cars is limited, but it’s only 1 block from the East Bay Bike Path.
DONNELLY: So we encourage people to bike in from Providence. It’s about 10 miles, which is not too bad, mostly flat. And there’s plenty of places to park the bike.
BAUMGARTNER: The Warren Folks Fest is on Saturday from 1 to 8 PM [music: Mary-Elaine Jenkins]
