GREENSBORO, N.C. — This year's North Carolina Folk Festival scheduled for September 11-13 will be virtual this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"You know the very nature of what we do is convene large mass gatherings of people for a huge community celebration and just given the circumstances with COVID-19 we are just not able to do that," NC Folk Festival President and CEO Amy Grossmann said.
The folk festival is partnering with two other Greensboro organizations, the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society and 7 Cinematics.
"Really celebrating Greensboro North Carolina is a major priority for us this year," Grossmann said.
Artists will be invited to perform in iconic spots around Greensboro as if it were live. But it will be recorded and edited into three programs lasting between 2 -2.5 hours each.
"It's kind of like a movie format. That's what people can kind of expect," Grossmann said. "We hope they will go out and buy some food from local restaurants bring it home and enjoy a nice festival movie."
The performances will be released on the NC Folk Festival's youtube channel and another streaming platform called nugs.net the weekend of September 11-13.
"What we are hoping is that out of this it's actually going to end up yielding a lot of new ways for us to present content going forward so maybe down the road people can expect to see more things from us online in addition to getting back to normal and doing a big festival in downtown Greensboro in 2021," Grossmann said.
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