DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

​Be warned this is a bit of a grumpy rant. 

As a root folk songwriter, there is likely no bigger festival to play than the Kerrville Folk Music Festival in Kerrville, Texas. It is the granddaddy of songwriting festivals. Many other songwriting festivals are modelled after Kerrville. In fact, someone once pointed out to me that the Kerrville Folk Music Festival is not a folk festival, it’s a Songwriter Festival first and foremost. I would agree. The songwriter is king in Kerrville.

I got my foot in the door at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 2007 with a songwriting competition they hold every year called the New Folk songwriting competition. From 800 submissions, they choose 32 finalists. Over two days of this three week festival, you heard me right - three week festival, each of the New Folk finalists sing two songs. From these 32 finalist six winners are chosen. In 2007, I was one of those winners. In 2009 I got to return to the Kerrville with a main stage slot. It was a defining moment for this young songwriter at the time, and still remains one of the highlights of my little career.

That's me on the end in the picture below.

A couple days ago I got a dream offer. The artistic director of Kerrville emailed me to come back and play a main stage slot as well as judge the New Folk competition for 2026. Let me just say that this was a real honour for me.  I said yes and downloaded the work visa form I would need to play in the US.

Most musicians from outside of the US need to get a work visa in order to perform in the US. There are various levels of visas you can apply for, but the most common one is called a P2 visa and you must apply to the Department of Homeland Security in order to attain one. 

I used to go down to the US a lot, sometimes two or three times a year. I had a small time agent in Florida named Cathy Woolsey, who worked her butt off to get me shows. Back then a P2 visa was worth about $300 US, paid to homeland security and there was an additional cost of C$25, paid to the Canadian chapter of the American Federation of Musicians, commonly known as the AFM or the musicians' union.

Processing time for the application took about 8 to 10 weeks. You had to plan ahead to make sure that you had your application in and your work visa processed and returned to you so that when you cross the border at US customs, you could present both your passport and your P2. It was the only way to get in and play.

I called the union this morning after reading that the processing time had increased.  I was told that the processing time was now a minimum of 7 1/2 months and the application fee was $510 US with an additional fee of $125. Canadian paid to the Canadian chapter of the AFM. I was prepared to pay the fee but the processing fee stopped me in my tracks.

The Kerrville folk festival happens in May. It is now November 25th so there’s no way with 7 1/2 months of processing time that I would be able to have my P2 in place before the festival. I was told there is a premium processing fee that I could pay in order to have my P2 expedited. That fee is $2850 US. I don’t know if that’s on top of the $510 US regular fee or not. I didn'y ask because it doesn't matter.

Now, I don’t normally tell people what I make as a performance fee, it also varies from show to show, but this time it only makes sense for me to tell you. I was offered $1900 US for a 45 minute set and the opportunity to be a judge for new folk. I was incredibly honoured to be asked and so excited at the thought of returning to Kerrville.

But you can do the math. The fee for the expedited P2 visa is more than my performance fee and this doesn’t take into consideration my flights which are not covered by the festival. 

This exorbitant fee has removed my ability to go down to the states and play. When is the union gonna do something about this? 

Yours truly,

Grumpy About This Whole Thing,

P.S. On the flipside American musicians who come to Canada are not required to have a work visa. I don’t begrudge them for this, that’s the way it should be.