The Folk Festival Society of Calgary is a year-round, not-for-profit arts organization, presenting magical music moments that have been inspiring Calgarians since 1979. Known for our marquee summer Festival, for the past five years, we have also been running a fall and spring concert series at our performance venue, Festival Hall. In 2016 we introduced Calgarians to a winter festival called Block Heater, it’s winter’s version of the Calgary Folk Music Festival.

I grew up in Calgary and love this city with everything I’ve got. I am truly passionate about making my hometown a truly great place to live. Working for the Folk Fest is a direct way of contributing to the vibrancy of our community.

Executive Director

Stand and Command have led our board of directors in our most recent strategic planning process and continues to help us fine tune that plan to ensure we are creating a true north for our organization to move toward. Avnish has also provided invaluable leadership coaching to senior management.

Avnish took the time to truly understand our organization; our strengths, realities and challenges and because of that understanding he knew where to challenge us to think bigger and to move past sacred cows.

Over the last five years, the Folk Festival Society of Calgary has evolved from a summer festival to a year-round organization. Stand and Command helped us discover our new and comprehensive identity. For the first time, our organizational pillars are being taken into account across departments for planning purposes and as an anchor. In an organization with almost four decades of history and very invested community stakeholders, our work with Stand and Command helped us bravely lean into the challenges of staying relevant in a competitive market with a unified vision.