Richmond Folk Festival Announces First Group of Artists

The Richmond Folk Festival returns October 10-12, in its twenty-first year as one of Virginia’s largest and most cherished events. Each year, thousands return to Downtown Richmond’s riverfront to celebrate the roots, richness, and variety of American culture through music, dance, traditional crafts, storytelling, and food. The free festival is held over three days, featuring six stages and showcasing music and dance from more than 30 performing groups from around the nation and the world. 

This year’s festival site will be slightly modified to adjust for the many additions to the landscape of Downtown’s riverfront. The updated site map will be available on the festival website soon, as well as in the pocket guides distributed at the festival.

“Downtown Richmond’s riverfront continues to experience exciting changes, in part due to its popularity from the many remarkable events over the past several years,” said Stephen Lecky, director of events at Venture Richmond. “We’re really happy to be able to incorporate some of those additions into this year’s folk festival.”

The Richmond Folk Festival today announces the first eight artists of what will once again make up a multicultural and artistically excellent program. 

Artists to be featured at the 2025 Richmond Folk Festival include:

The Amanda Cook Band (bluegrass)

Fancy Gap, Virginia

Diunna Greenleaf & Blue Mercy (blues)

Houston, Texas

Meta & the Cornerstones (reggae)

New York, New York

Raiatea Helm (Hawaiian falsetto singing) 

Honolulu, Hawai’i

Richard Hagopian Ensemble (Armenian)

Fresno, California

Son Qba (Cuban son) 

Miami, Florida

Terry & the Zydeco Bad Boys (zydeco)

Duson, Louisiana

Yamini Kalluri & the Kritya Music Ensemble (Kuchipudi dance) 

Lansing, Michigan

Click here for extended artist bios, plus audio and video samples on our website.

The Richmond Folk Festival is presented by Venture Richmond Events in partnership with the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA), Virginia Humanities, Center for Cultural Vibrancy, Children’s Museum, and the City of Richmond.

Friends of the Festival

Become a Friend of the Festival to help sustain the Richmond Folk Festival for many years to come! Gifts from our Friends ensure the consistency and future of the performances and programs that we all enjoy. Your support is invaluable to us as we work to sustain one of Virginia’s largest artistic and cultural gatherings and the largest folk festival of its kind in the country. 

Benefits of being a Friend of the Festival include two weekend parking passes to the Richmond Folk Festival, your name/company on four Thank You banners located at the festival, your name/company on our sponsors webpage, a commemorative RFF Friends enameled pin and a limited-edition screen print version of the official festival poster hand-signed and numbered by the artist.

Learn more and sign up here! https://www.richmondfolkfestival.org/donations

Festival Hours

Friday, October 10 — 6:30pm – 10:00pm 

Saturday, October 11 — 12:00pm – 9:30pm 

Sunday, October 12 — 12:00pm – 6:00pm

More information on the festival and additional artists performing will follow later this summer.

For more information about the Richmond Folk Festival, visit www.richmondfolkfestival.org. #RVAFolkFest  –  Text to Give! Text FOLK to 44321