In 1998, the staff at a little folk club in Harvard Square had a problem. The issue was Labor Day. Audiences went to the beach and the family cookout. Few came to the cool, dark room just beneath Palmer Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To solve this problem, this attendance challenge, the staff tried something new. They threw a festival. They called it ‘On the Cutting Edge of the Campfire.' Returning to talk to us about the Campfire festival on the occasion of its 25th anniversary is the one person who’s been the absolute throughline of this bigger-than-a-festival story — Matt Smith, managing director of Passim.

Click this link to see the full Campfire weekend schedule, September 1–4, 2023.