When Sharon Casey started volunteering at the National Folk Festival in 1998, she wasn’t into folk and didn’t play an instrument, but 26 years of volunteering later she’s “folkified” and plays a mean fiddle.

Her annual volunteering habit has been impossible to break and Sharon pretty much raised her son amongst the folk and the music.

“I came to my first festival when I was a mature-age student at University of Western Sydney,” Sharon said. “I loved it so much I lost a stone in that weekend running around filling in the program with a bunch of friends, it was fantastic. My son grew up at the festival and always associates folk music with home. Back in ‘98 when they had free childcare at the festival, he even booked himself in!”

Sharon’s transformation over the past 26 years of volunteering has been incredible – the self-proclaimed ‘80s rock child (her first concert was Adam and the Ants) took violin lessons 20 years ago and formed her own folk band – O’Neill’s Folly.

“We are late-bloomers but you’re never too old to start your own band,” Sharon said, who’s a young 50-something Canberran. “It took me 10 years going from feeling like I’m just a learner to performing and realising, I can claim to be a musician. It’s never too late.”

The festival’s famous and spontaneous “sessions bar” is now a place where Sharon jams with fellow musos into the wee hours. She still has the same uni mates who make the annual pilgrimage and now her ‘80s music obsession is “folkified”.

“My band turns my favourite rock songs by U2 and Bruce Springsteen into folk songs,” Sharon said. “Pretty much any hits from the ‘80s can be made folky. As soon as you add a mandolin and fiddle and take away the production, it’s folkified.”

Times have changed and Sharon remembers when she first started as a volunteer manager in ’98, she oversaw 200 volunteers. Today there’s a small army of 900 volunteers. She also remembers a volunteer masseuse team (before insurance premiums put an end to it) that offered neck-and-shoulder massages to weary volunteers.

Over the past 26 years (she tried to take a break from volunteering but failed), Sharon’s volunteered as a volunteer manager, VIP function manager, NFF board member and more recently, offered her extensive corporate knowledge to rebuild volunteer numbers post-Covid.

“Volunteering gives people a sense of belonging and probably half of the volunteers aren’t musicians or aren’t into folk music but they are into folk people and the folk scene,” Sharon said. “A lot of people find their tribe and then they explore the music and find they like it.”

Sharon’s long-term association with the National Folk Festival is due largely to the people, not the stars of the show.

“One of the things that I’ve always loved about the folk festival is that volunteers end up being a big family,” she said. “When you’ve done it once you keep coming back. If you’re here during the set-up period, you see motorhomes arrive and people setting up camp and greeting each other – but they don’t encounter each other from one year to the next, except for the festival. That for me is the highlight, seeing that happen.”

As the bunting goes up and the old National Tally Room (Budawang building) becomes a main stage, Sharon isn’t the only one with folk fever in her blood. The festival’s managing director, Heidi Pritchard, plans on getting a tattoo of the festival’s bunting, once the festival wraps up.

National Folk Festival runs from 28 March – 1 April at Exhibition Park. Tickets: www.folkfestival.org.au