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16-17 June 2012
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The Steamboat Folk Weekend started with a folk session at the Steamboat Tavern.
The session’s been going for a few years now, and in June 2004, landlady Val Bint decided to
try something a bit more ambitious and host a whole weekend of folk music and
dancing.
The Steamboat Folk Weekend 2004 was a huge success and we enjoyed it so much we
decided to do it again! But the event became bigger than the pub; we wanted to
tie it in more closely with the pub’s dockside location but we also wanted to put it on the map as an Ipswich event,
not just the Steamboat’s – hence the change of name in 2005 to Ipswich Riverside Folk and Maritime
Festival (and, incidentally, the origin of the “irfmf.org.uk” domain name).
After three very successful years as IRFMF, however, financial constraints
started to creep in, and we also discovered some disadvantages to advertising a
“folk festival” at such a small venue – so we split the difference and reverted to Ipswich Riverside Folk Weekend in
2008.
And then, in 2011, after further unavoidable “downsizing”, the event came full circle and is back to being the Steamboat Folk Weekend
again! But we still hope you’ll have a great time.
I’ve taken the photo album down temporarily for logistical reasons, but there is
quite a lot of footage on YouTube, particularly from 2010/2011. Search for
Steamboat Folk Weekend or the MikeCooperish channel.