Having returned to the summer with the 1981 Festival, in 1982 the Festival of American Folklife returned to its original plot on the National Mall among Smithsonian Museum buildings. It took place for two fiveday weeks (June 24-28 and July 1-5) between Madison Drive and Jefferson Drive and between 10th Street and 14th Street, south of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History. As noted by Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, "We celebrate the return to a quieter, more easily accessible, and larger site, and also to one that makes more clearly visible the strong, complimentary relationship between museum collections and the presenters of living traditions."
The 1982 Program Book provides information on each of the four programs.
The 1982 Festival was co-presented by the Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service, with support from the Diamond Jubilee Commission of the State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation, International Cultural Society of Korea, and Music Performance Trust Funds, and with cooperation of the National Endowment for the Arts. It was organized by the Office of Folklife Programs.