If you enjoyed the National Folk Festival, you'll enjoy the Richmond Folk Festival.

"It's going to be the same exact event," said Katie Boyer, spokeswoman for the riverfront festival.

Same place. Same wide variety of entertainment. Same number of stages.

Same admission charge (none).

Next year's dates haven't been chosen yet for the debut of the Richmond festival, but it's expected to be a weekend in September or October.

"We have no plans to change . . . anything," said Lisa Sims, director of events for Venture Richmond, the local organizer of the festival. "We liked the way it worked this year."

The national festival concluded its three-year run Sunday, setting a weekend attendance record of 175,000, almost twice last year's and more than any previous festivals in other cities. Beyond the excellent weather, organizers believe it was mostly a matter of people becoming familiar with the festival.

"Generally speaking, it takes three years for this event to take hold," Sims said. "The first year, we thought our biggest challenge was overcoming the word 'folk' and trying to educate people that this is not what most people think of as folk music. It's everybody's roots music."

Numerous sponsors already are on board for next year's festival -- including Dominion Resources Inc., the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Genworth Financial, Ukrop's, First Market Bank, Philip Morris USA, SunTrust, NewMarket Corp. and the city of Richmond.

More sponsors are still needed to cover the cost of the festival, which is expected to be slightly more than the $1.4 million needed to produce this year's national festival, Sims said.

Organizers will retain the National Council for the Traditional Arts to help arrange the programming for the festival. Next year's National Folk Festival will begin a three-year run in Butte, Mont., but there will be no direct competition for performers with the Richmond festival. The Butte event will be in July.
Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com.