ANOTHER Port Fairy Folk Festival is off and rockin’ and the big guns were out last night to get the show started.
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See more photos: The first full day of Folkie fun
Australian music legend Normie Rowe hit the stage for his debut appearance at the world famous festival.
Rowe is part of a huge line-up at the festival which will run until Monday afternoon.
Beccy Cole, Shane Nicholson, Mick Thomas, the Stray Sisters and Things of Stone and Wood are among the high-profile Australian performers.
The international line-up includes Irishmen Glen Hansard and Damien Dempsey, Justin Johnson from the US and high-energy Scottish outfit Breabach.
In all, more than 120 acts will perform at the 38th annual festival.
The Port Fairy community has a large stake in the event, with a mass of volunteers playing their part in the smooth running of all performances.
Festival director and founder Jamie McKew is proud of the community input.
“It’s a genuine community festival,” Mr McKew said.
“You get that great sense of community and there are so many different ways you can turn, its such a beautiful location.”
The festival began in 1977 when Mr McKew and his fellow Geelong Folk Club members picked Port Fairy as the location for the folk festival they wanted to get off the ground.
The first festival involved bands on the back of a truck in the Port Fairy Gardens and Irish dancing on the Village Green.
The Port Fairy community embraced the festival and soon began to expand at a rapid rate and has evolved into one of the best festivals of its kind in the world.
This year all 11,500 general public admission tickets to the main arena at Southcombe Park were sold out.
But for those who have missed out on tickets there is still plenty to see with the fringe festival taking over the town’s CBD.
The Folkie also gives great exposure to emerging artists such as Imogen Brough, from Geelong, who opened last night.
It is estimated abut 30,000 people will converge on Port Fairy over the weekend to share in one of the biggest annual events in the region.