Broadstairs Folk Week will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2025. Founded as a festival of folk music, song and dance, it has grown in popularity and impact over the years to become a hugely important event in Kent's cultural calendar. Each year, the festival packs out Broadstairs, with daily free entertainment at the Bandstand, the Craft & Music Fair, music and song sessions in pubs around town; dance displays and an opening parade. Festival goers enjoy concerts by top musicians from the UK and beyond. Participation is at the heart of Folk Week, with opportunities to take part in over 70 workshops in music, song and dance - joining in with choirs, ukulele players, clogging, African drumming and many more. Folk Week relies on its volunteer workforce to ensure that the festival actually happens. Around 250 people fulfill an amazing array of tasks - they drive minibuses, check in festival goers at the campsite; steward concerts, sell tickets at the temporary Box office; make beds in accommodation for visiting artistes; sell lottery tickets and merchandise, collect donations in tins where the free entertainment takes place; run the free family entertainment at the bandstand and manage venues, liaise with artistes and dance sides. Previous Folk Weeks have included special themes and outreach projects that covered the role of women in folk music; the roots of folk music, green themes and a 2 year community singing project. The festival has meant so much to generations of local people and visitors who return year after year. In 2012, Kent County Council carried out an Economic Benefit Impact survey that showed that the festival inputs £2.3 million into the local economy. There is a Friends of Folk Week membership, a Corporate supporters scheme and plenty of opportunites for local businesses to sponsor. There is sometimes an assumption that Folk Week effortlessly returns, year after year, its future assured forever, but festival only happens because of the time and dedication of the people who love it and want it to continue.