This article deals with public performances of folk music in Sweden. After a few introductory remarks on events as study objects, follows a brief historical survey of some main forms or formats of such performances. An analytical model is then presented, which is used to explain some of the changes that has occurred in public presentations of folk music in Sweden. Then the modern folk music festival is examined, a type of event that in short time has been spread all over the world. Folk music festivals, it is argued, can be read as texts, complex as they are, full of significance, pregnant with meaning. But they can also be seen as instruments, powerful tools for change, manipulation, for overriding old power structures and cultural borders, as well as setting up new.