Now into its fifth decade, the Auckland Folk festival is a venerable institution, first conceived and created by the folk and traditional music and dance clubs of Auckland in the 1970’s. For the past 25 years, the festival has been based at the Kumeu Showgrounds in West Auckland, where the music venues are spread over gently rolling paddocks and campers meet up with old friends and musical comrades-at-arms to play and dance long into the night.