The Shelter Valley Folk Festival is a grassroots family celebration of visual arts, wellness, sustainable living, harvest foods, and the finest in Folk, Roots, and Blues music. The Festival takes place on the Henkel Farm each Labour Day Weekend (Sept. 4th-6th, 2009), located near the village of Grafton (about an hour east of the city of Toronto) and overlooks the rolling hills of Northumberland County and Lake Ontario.

The mainstage is literally built from trees cut down on the property and built off the barn. The barn proper is the backstage. This festival is a logo-free event - there are not company logos on any stage, tent, truck, toilet, poster or program. There are no vendors on site; there are juried arts village and demonstration tents. Village contributors do not pay to be there, they are artists too, like musicians, and as such are treated as equal players in the presentation of this festival.

The festival books primarily solo-songwriters (of all styles) as well as a few duo, trio and band acts. The budget is limited, and approximately 20 acts are booked each year. It helps if the act is already booked in Ontario with an anchor date at that time of the summer. Each and every artist is paid exactly the same fee, no matter who they are. The festival relies on local individuals and business to support the production and programming costs through donations (cash and in-kind).

The Festival is a camping event, including the artists and musicians (with campfires and starlight song-circles). A small travel honourarium is provided for out-of province acts. There is no limit to the number of Sonicbids performers that could be booked, nor is there a reserved number. We book based on quality, appropriateness for our audience, composition in relation to the rest of the roster, and timing (we might have hit our quota for 20-something white guys with guitars for this year). If the top 20 desired acts happened to all be Sonicbids members that would be great.

Past performers the world has known about have included Valdy, Lynn Miles, David Francey, Sarah Harmer, and Murray McLaughlan. That said we really try not to push headliners, we'd rather have people come regardless of who is on the lineup. Some of the best music and discoveries have been artists no-one had heard of before coming to the festival.

We preview all acts live in advance of booking. Preview are done at the OCFF conference each fall in Ontario (see www.ocff.ca) or at the Folk Alliance in Memphis each February. And of course at area shows and other festivals. Music is a core element of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival, but the primary focus is community.