Prince George Folkfest Society has been bringing musicians from all over the world to Northern BC since our inception in 2003. Since 2007, our society has focused on presenting Coldsnap – our flagship winter music festival. The festival is held near the end of January/beginning of February, a time when the residents of Northern BC are actively seeking indoor entertainment.

Coldsnap is a nine-night festival that presents artists in several settings with ticketed evening concerts at dancing-suitable event spaces and soft-seat theatres. In addition, we contract the artists that play the nighttime concerts to perform free daytime community outreach events at schools, recreation centres, local businesses and other small intimate venues mostly around downtown Prince George.

The festival provides attendees an unforgettable musical experience, and showcases a sample of the fantastic arts and culture scene that Prince George has to offer. The free daytime community outreach events (“workshops” in traditional festival nomenclature) continue to be a very important aspect of our festival. Attendees are able to experience artists in intimate settings and learn some of the aspects of their art. The settings are relaxed and informal, and allow an opportunity for those members of society who might not be comfortable in (or able to afford) a traditional concert setting the opportunity to experience of live music.

For many of the out-of-town artists that we present, it is their first time in Prince George and without fail, they are amazed and very appreciative of the warm reception and hospitality that the festival and the Prince George audience shows them, as well as the professionalism of the festival production. The success of Coldsnap continued in 2021 and 2022 when we moved to an all online, and then a hybrid format with increasing online audience numbers and very appreciative patrons both live and online.