Super in-tents Colourful folk festival campground a hive of creative activity By: Eva Wasney Posted: 10:04 PM CDT Thursday, Jul. 9, 2026

The 51st annual Winnipeg Folk Festival had yet to commence, but festivities in the campground were already in full swing.

The festival campground opened early Wednesday morning and provides a temporary home to more than 6,000 residents during the four-day music festival at Birds Hill Provincial Park.

By Thursday afternoon, the area had been transformed into a sea of colourful tents and trailers. A steady stream of campers could be seen hauling wagons from the parking lot loaded with essentials: coolers and tarps, sleeping bags and sunscreen.

Others brought a little more than the basics.

Logan Leclerc and Stephanie Norris packed a 5-by-10-foot projector screen to add some extra fun to their Scooby-Doo-inspired site. The theme started when Leclerc painted his Boler camper to look like the Mystery Machine — the van used by the animated crime-fighting team— which drew much attention and many photos from passersby.

“It became a big hit, so we were like, why not make it a full thing where people can come and hang out, rather than just a photo op?’” Norris says.

The couple has since added a life-size Scooby poster, strings of colourful flowers and a board where people can vote for the daily midnight movie. Leclerc estimates 200 people stopped by Wednesday’s screening of Shrek and is looking forward to hosting Super Smash Bros. contests throughout the weekend.

“We really wanted people to see it from Pope’s Hill,” Leclerc says of the large white screen stationed on the fence line facing the mound that was once visited by Pope John Paul II and which becomes a campground gathering place during the festival.

Leclerc and Norris slept in their car Tuesday night to snag the primo camping spot.

It was worth the discomfort, especially for a chance at winning the annual campground decoration contest.

“The first year I came to folk fest … I was in awe of everything,” he says. “It was a magical experience walking through the campground, there was so much to see and do. I got jealous and wanted to be a thing to do and a place to be, so I put in the effort.”

The festival launched the contest in 2023. Campers vote for their favourite installations and the winners receive tickets for the following year.

Nearby, Kateesha Wai was helping her friend craft an elaborate tinfoil hat.

“At folk fest, there’s always these lovely artists that come in and build wonderful artistic structures and so we took inspiration from that,” Wai says while pulling another strip of foil from the half-dozen rolls she and her friends brought camping.

The crew of 20 campers was unaware of the contest, but had spent many hours leading up to the festival crafting decor to turn their treed site into an “alien disco” — a cardboard spaceship, a telescope, UFOs, hanging planets.

“It’s for the joy of the game,” Robyn Chow says of the group effort. “You walk around and see so many amazing sites and you want to be part of that community.”

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The festival gates opened with the traditional tarp run, after which the sellout crowd settled in for a muggy, buggy night of music. Single tickets and weekend passes sold out prior to Thursday’s opening night for the first time in festival history.

The sky was overcast and punctuated by the smell of kettle corn and bug spray while Grandmother Chickadee Richard delivered the opening blessing.

Brandon-born indie rocker Fontine followed, performing the title track of her 2025 album, Good Buddy, to a rapt audience. The set included cameos from musical friends Taylor Jackson and Lauren Dillon.

Wearing a trucker hat emblazoned with the words “Big Rig” and strumming a pink electric guitar, Fontine soaked up the chance to headline in front of a hometown crowd.

“This is an evening I’ll never forget,” she said after thanking the crowd.

The clouds had parted in advance of American indie-pop artist Father John Misty’s closing main-stage performance.

The festival wraps Sunday night with 15,000 visitors expected daily.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com