Summertime … and the fans are jumping

F&O Folk Fest Henry Wagons - Gavin Kennedy
VANCOUVER, Canada — Henry Wagons performs with his Australian band Wagons — self described as “neo-rockabilly” and “a Lynyrd Skynrd tribute show in an Alice Springs bar.” Photo by Gavin Kennedy © 2014

The weather can be capricious, but entertainment expands and lightens up in the long summer days of the Northern Hemisphere, with a music or theatre festival most weekends.

The most unusual is perhaps the arctic Great Northern Arts Festival each July in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, with pop musicians performing alongside Inuit fashion shows and throat-singers. One of the largest occurs annually in central Europe – this year rain failed to deter some 145,000 Europeans from Hungary’s annual electronic music festival, Balaton Sound, in mid-July. In August Edinburgh’s annual Festival Fringe will draw creators from around the world. And in America’s Pacific Northwest this weekend, tens of thousands sat on the ground under overcast skies to hear traditional and eclectic tunes at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, on the shore of the city’s English Bay.