We’ve clued you in to all the artists who’ve been booked so far for the 2013 Regina Folk Festival, and I’ve told you all how jazzed I am about it. It may come as a surprise, though, that putting together this lineup was easy for Sandra Butel, artistic director for the RFF, at least relative to other years.
“This year, there may have been one offer that was turned down,” says Butel. “Everything else that I put out as an offer was a ‘Yes’, which never happens. More often, there’s a round of offers, and then most of them go away, then you start again.”
A lot of those offers happen to have gone to great female acts, who make up a large part of this edition of the festival, headliners included.
“It was really odd, because I was telling my graphic artist, ‘All I can tell you is there’s going to be lots of hot women, so play with that.’”
One near the top of the list that will interest many is Neko Case. The alt-country singer was last part of the festival when she played with the New Pornographers in the early 2000s. Since not long after that, Butel’s been trying to bring Case back on her own.
“I’ve put offers in the last five or six years, where it would just be like, ‘Hey! Is Neko available?’”
Butel thinks she got Case thanks to having a good relationship with Case’s agent, who also represents former RFF performers like the New Pornographers and Calexico.
“It’s really interesting to me how many bookings happen because I know the agent. You’d think it would be, if you have the money, you can book the artist. That’s not how it works. They have to trust you. They’re putting their artist in your hands.”
