A crowd of people take in a performance at the 2009 Winnipeg Folk Festival. (Mike Deal/Winnipeg Free Press/Canadian Press)Organizers of the Winnipeg Folk Festival are going after scalpers selling inflated tickets for the popular music festival.

Some festival passes, particularly those with camping access to the noisy campground, were listed for sale online for hundreds of dollars more than the original price.

The festival has two campgrounds: a quiet one geared toward families and another one that is open to party-oriented campers and typically sells out far in advance of the event.

There are still passes available for the quiet campground, but tickets to the sold-out festival campground have become a hot commodity.

The Folk Festival attracts performers from around the world and draws thousands of people every year. (CBC)Depending upon how far in advance the passes to the festival campground site were purchased, they ranged in price from $216 to $260.

On Monday, more than a half-dozen with asking prices above $400 were listed on the internet classified advertising site, Kijiji.

Some ads listed the passes for as much as $500 or $600.

On Tuesday, however, most of those were gone and the highest price was $355.

Searching sites, cancelling tickets

Folk Festival executive director Tamara Kater said staff and volunteers have been scouring online sites and cracking down on the scalpers.

"We monitor all sorts of areas and check the ads ourselves. We respond to ads and let people know that that is illegal," she said.

'What's worse than not getting a campground ticket is paying $500 to not get a campground ticket.'—Tamara Kater, Folk Festival executive director

If they don't comply by taking down the ad, the tickets are traced and cancelled by the Folk Festival.

Kater urged people not to buy any tickets online, because they could be getting tickets that have been voided by the festival.

"What's worse than not getting a campground ticket is paying $500 to not get a campground ticket," she said.

The 37th edition of the annual festival, one of Canada's most popular outdoor music festivals, is scheduled to run July 7-11 at Birds Hill Provincial Park, 10 kilometres northeast of the city.

In addition to the music performances, the festival features a folk school, programs for young performers and young visual artists, more than 100 artisans, children's programming, a visual art exhibition, and a food village that encourages the use of local, organic and fair trade ingredients.

There are more than 80 musicians performing this year, including Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt and Levon Helm. Check the link at the top right of this page for the complete line-up.