Folklorama pavilions welcome 426K visitors

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/08/2015 (3691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeggers said ciao, au revoir and arrivederci to the 46th Folklorama festival on Sunday.

Folklorama is the world’s largest and longest-running multicultural festival and it drew an estimated 426,000 visitors to its 43 pavilions over the last two weeks.

Many of those would-be world travelers in Winnipeg were tourists from around the globe.

There were 120 tour groups, some of them hailing from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, England, Germany, Ireland, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, and St. Lucia, according to a Folklorama press release.

Debra Zoerb, executive director of Folklorama, said many attendees seriously took the festival’s theme, See It All, to heart.

“It definitely resonated because with 43 pavilions there’s definitely lots to see. With challenging folks to see it all, a lot of people took that challenge and did really well with it,” Zoerb said.

Mayor Brian Bowman was one of the few who took in every single pavilion – and captured his journey in great detail on social media, Zoerb said.

So did engaged couple, Michael Horbay and Lisa Kappel, who biked to each pavilion and documented the trip using the hashtag #michaelandlisafitnessfun.

There were 20,000 volunteers who pitched in to make the pavilions run smoothly and Zoerb wanted to thank them and all those who came out to witness the worldly entertainment, exhibits, food and drink.

“The good will and the strong reputation of Folklorama continues to flourish year after year and speaks to why so many people come back to Folklorama and why new folks want to take it in,” she said.

Next year’s festival runs from July 31 to August 13, 2016.

Folklorama started in 1970 as a celebration of Manitoba’s centennial and the party hasn’t stopped since.

–staff