10 May, 2010


The Yungaburra Folk Festival is a music festival held in the historic village of Yungaburra, in north Queensland, Australia. The festival of 2006 marked the 25th anniversary of the Festival. The first ever "Festival of the Tableland", was held in Herberton on 8 May and 9 May 1981. It then moved to Yungaburra in 1982, where it has been held ever since. Various individuals and groups - including locals, the Cairns Folk Club and the Townsville Folk Club - ran the Festival for the next 11 years. Since 1994, the Festival has been organised by a committee of Tablelanders. The festival is kept going by the passion and commitment of the organisers.

The festival celebrates world-wide folk traditions through music, storytelling, circus, dance, and crafts, and features musicians, dancers, circus and fire artists, comedians and festival performers. Yungaburra is surrounded by World Heritage rainforests, lakes, waterfalls and Queensland's tallest mountain, Mount Bartle Frere.

Intimate concert settings showcase music across a wide range of blues, roots, jazz, world and folk styles, plus comedy, poetry and dance. The combination of young and old, modern and traditional enhances the intimate, feel-good atmosphere.

This combination of young and old, modern and traditional is just one of the ingredients that has made Yungaburra Folk Festival such a great local event. The Festival retains an intimate, feel-good atmosphere in the midst of its undoubted success and popularity. Barbara explains the factors that has seen the Festival grow over the years but still keep close to the 'Old Folkies' vision.


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