Welcome to Sisters Folk Festival 2021

There’s an old saying that when times are hard you find out who your friends are. The Sisters Folk Festival organization has certainly found that to be true over the past 19 months. When COVID- 19 hit in March of 2020, we – like so many other nonprofits and private businesses dependent on the gathering of people – wondered how we would survive, especially as the weeks of restrictions turned into months.

We found out quickly just how much support we have when we took our largest annual fundraiser and community arts celebration, My Own Two Hands (MOTH), virtual in May of 2020. The online format has become everyday at this point, but being one of the first groups to go in that direction, we were amazed and humbled when the bids and donations poured in from Sisters and beyond, surpassing our most optimistic expectations. It turned out to be one of our

best fundraisers ever, a feat that was repeated in our 2021 virtual MOTH event.

Then we got pretty good at delivering programming virtually with Sisters Songworks and the Song Academy for Youth. A few months later, we held Close to Home, a seating pod concert on our lawn in August of 2020 featuring live performances from Oregonbased artists. Tickets sold out within minutes of going on sale. Once the concept was proven, we expanded on it and planned two days of physically distanced concerts over what should have been our normal festival weekend in September. Then the devastating Labor Day fires of 2020 tore through the McKenzie River Valley, creating a swath of destruction and taking our Close to Home 2 plans up in smoke, literally.

It became obvious that we would have to move the traditional festival dates since that would have been the second cancellation in three years due to wildfire smoke. We settled on early October and began our planning in hopes that COVID would soon be in the rearview mirror. Months passed and the pandemic raged on, but we forged ahead with ambitious plans for a summer of distanced outdoor concerts in case the festival couldn’t happen again.

The Sisters Summer of Festival was born. With the help of dozens of volunteers and the support of sponsors, grantors and donors, we presented 16 artists over 4 weekends this past summer as we developed the brand-new stage and venue at Sisters Art Works, an improvement you can check out at the festival this weekend. The timing of those concerts fell during COVID’s brief ebb, allowing us to ease capacity restrictions and it was glorious to feel like things were returning to normal, if only for a brief time.

As soon as the last concert ended on August 14, we turned our focus to the 24th Annual Sisters Folk Festival and making it happen in the safest possible way. Putting on a large event during a pandemic is still unchartered territory, but if we’re going to be living with this disease for the foreseeable future we’ll also need to have the things that make life worth living – like gathering to celebrate the art and creativity of 30 amazing artists on 7 stages in a beautiful town situated at the base of Central Oregon’s stunning Three Sisters mountains.

Thank you, friends, for being here to celebrate with us.

2021 SFF COVID response: Attendees will be required to show proof of vaccination (either original card, legible photo on phone or digital app) upon check-in to the event and will be issued a nontransferable wristband that must be worn to enter all venues. Proof of vaccination will be required for all ticket holders, volunteers, vendors, performers and staff. The only exception to the policy is for children under the age of 12, who are not yet eligible for vaccination. Children aged 4-11 will be required to wear a mask at all times while inside event venues. All local or statewide masking mandates in place at the time of the event will be followed. All seven of this year’s festival venues are outdoors; three are tented. Tent walls will be open where possible to allow for maximum air flow and ventilation. Please be considerate of your fellow festival attendees and maintain physical distance whenever possible. When you can’t, please wear a mask.