OcraFolk Festival

 For nineteen years the OcraFolk Storytelling and Music Festival was held on the island the first full weekend in June.  Then came COVID.  Last year the festival was cancelled and we had to miss each other for that weekend.  This year the festival came back to life.

The 21st Year was moved from the traditional sites on Howard Street and Schoolhouse Road to the Berkeley Center grounds where crowd size and containment could be planned for and controlled.

Telling on the Barn Stage. 85 degrees and humid!

There were two main performance stages: the Golden Stage and the Barn Stage.  The Barn Stage was set up on the porch of the Berkeley Center barn and chairs filled the lawn in front.  The Golden Stage was under twin tents in the front yard of the Center itself.  The Golden Stage was named in memory of John Golden, both a performer and a stage host at the festival throughout its history and a favorite friend and performer in Ocracoke’s total music world.  We miss John terribly following his death during the past year.

On the Golden Stage.

The original plans, put together when gatherings were much more restricted under COVID regulations got to be relaxed a bit and we were able to both move and associate more freely under recently revised regulations and recommendations.  There was a palpable joy in the air as people got to be together in a setting of music and stories for the first time in the island in two years!