The Mining City is preparing for the second annual Montana Folk Festival.
This year’s organizers are expecting the attendance numbers to grow by tens of thousands.

Festival workers and volunteers have been devoting dozens of their hours into preparation.

"We'll probably be doing 12 to 14 maybe even 16-hour days until we get to Thursday or Friday before the festival," said Bernie Shelton, on-site coordinator for the Folk Festival.

Last year's inaugural event drew some 140,000 people to the city. But with crowds that size the preparation begins long before the past couple of weeks.

"We've been working on this since January, planning and trying to schedule stuff, renting what we need and the administration side has been trying to fund raise for us so it's actually a year round process just to try and get this festival off the ground," Shelton added.

Several tents over on Granite St. are what’s considered to be the command post. Organizers over in these tents are going to make sure everything is on schedule when the first band begins to play on Friday.

But one of the main cornerstones of the festival is without a doubt the volunteers.
"We're pretty thankful for all of the volunteers who come out; it just kind of makes everything easier when everyone pitches in here and there"

This year’s festival will feature performances and demonstrations by over 250 of the nation's top musicians, dancers and craftspeople.