I'm 'with' Muppet's viewing of the situation.
Only there for the Saturday, I found the concert ran almost continuously from noon till 1am Sunday morning (short break for tea!) -
that's some value for £8 - the line-up included Bob Fox, Duncan McFarlane Band and Howden/Jones (to name a few) -
all names that grace the 'upper' billing of much bigger festivals than this smaller 'Gathering' (as it was termed).
There was a healthy singaround happening out front (rather than indoors - well, it WAS warm!)
and after doing their afternoon spot in the concert room, the DMcF band promptly set up in an empty pub room
(which subsequently filled up to capacity) and played for an hour and a half (for the hell of it) before going back in to do their evening spot.
They also gave up spots to anyone else that wanted a look-in during that time, bless 'em!
(The landlord's booking them back for an evening of their own I'm told)
Then the singaround certainly blossomed all evening and on till at least 4am.
Yeah, there should have been more folk around - publicity seemed to have been low on priority - but my understanding is that
'previous' organisers pulled out way back, and that at the eleventh hour some local musos had tried to pull summat together so the event didn't fold altogether.
As for the idea of the bulk of the acts being 'support acts'....
Wasn't everyone a support act once?
And do 'support acts' not move on and become the 'names' in future years?
Give it your support next time.
Finally - cracking location!