On September 21 and 22, the UMass Boston campus will be transformed from a regular hangout for academia, to a lively, multiple-stage concert venue for the 5th Annual WUMB Boston Folk Festival. Over the course of these two days, 10,000 people are expected to attend the event. With its waterfront location, UMass provides an ideal spot for the festival’s four outdoor music stages, vendors, and children’s activities. A cross between a jubilant celebration and a good old-fashioned party, this year’s Folk Festival offers participants plenty of reasons to have fun.

“It is a multi-cultural event,” says Pat Monteith, general manager at WUMB Radio, providing students “new opportunities to expose themselves to things they may not have been exposed to before.” One major advantage of highlighting Folk music is that it allows for variety. “We’ve tried to mix as many different genres as possible, and as many different musicians as possible,” she explains. “We’ve got singer/songwriters, we’ve got Zydeco music for the first time, Latino music, Blues, Bluegrass, even Gospel; there is really music for everybody.”

The Boston Folk Festival has gone through a number of changes since its conception. “The festival was actually designed as a way to preserve folk music into the twenty first century,” Monteith explains. With this basic principle, the first Folk Festival was launched with funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. It was two days long, free, and held in various parts of the city. “After that first year…we brought it to the campus and started small. There were five stages and it was only on Saturday. We used a lot of local performers.” From there, the festival furnished four more stages and more performers. Last year’s event added another day, and was a combination of indoor and outdoor stages.

Folk music and this region have had a longstanding relationship. “Back in the sixties, New England-Boston in particular-was the place to be if you liked folk music,” Monteith says. By the eighties, however, the scene had receded. “Now, there is this resurgence, and there are about 170 folk venues just inside of Route 495.” She adds, “We need to keep those coffeehouses there, we need to keep the festivals going. This is a culture that really can’t afford to be lost because it is such a rich and diverse culture. It’s the epitome of what Boston is all about. The Boston ‘melting-pot’ is right here at this festival.”

Going by the numbers, the Folk Festival certainly does attract a great cross-section of society. It is not only drawing a large number of locals, but as Monteith explains, “…people are coming from England, Canada, Japan, and twenty five different states.” Many of these people will be coming to UMass Boston for the first time. As a graduate of UMass, Pat Monteith is proud to be a part of something that shows people what the university has to offer. “Last year, thirty six percent of the people who came to the festival had never before set foot on this campus. That’s neat.”

The Boston Folk Festival is also a multi-generational event. “The weekend of the festival…there’s grandparents here with their grandkids, there’s whole families here. We keep it affordable so that these people can come with their families.” Monteith says, “It’s wonderful to see.”

Organizing a festival of this caliber is not an easy job. “It is a solid ten months of work,” Monteith explains; scheduling local, national, and international performers, working with forty vendors, organizing 300 volunteers, and making sure thousands of people are having fun is not an overnight project.

In order to shape the next year’s festival, work begins almost right after the last one ends. Aside from tabulating general demographic information, one of the most important steps in the planning process is evaluating surveys submitted by participants. “By and large, we use people’s suggestions to take a look at what we are going to do for the next year, both in terms of performers and vendors;” Monteith says, “Some of the questions we’re asking are ‘What did you think about what we did this year, and how should we change things for next year?'” Nearly all of the performers are accomplished in their field, and many have been formally recognized for their work.

As the festival expands, inevitable challenges arise. “Fortunately, we have the cooperation of many different departments on campus. We could not do this event if it wasn’t for departments like Public Safety and Facilities being as cooperative as they are. They are all key to the success of the festival,” Monteith says.

A cooperative effort to recruit student volunteers has worked out well. “This year we got the help of Student Activities to try and spread the word for us. We are hearing from a lot more students who are interested in volunteering this year,” Monteith says, adding that it is a “great opportunity to see a big musical festival for free!”