Don

This will be my first Sidmouth, and it is the fact that it is a festival made up of many individual parts allowing me to pick and choose what I see/hear and what I pay for that has enticed me down south.

As I have other commitments at either end of the week I cannot attend for the whole festival so a season ticket would have been of no benefit to me in any case, and unfortunately the ever increasing bureaucracy and 'claim culture' insurances are making commercial performances prohibitively expensive, especially if attending as a family – possibly thread creep, my apologies.

Of the festivals I have attended, I much prefer the "Fringe" sessions to the commercial performances, although it is only at such large festivals that the opportunity to see/hear some of the international artists arises.

Ask again after the festival and you may get some different responses, but considering the event that has been organised in such a short space of time, then 2006 along similar, but more co-ordinated lines, should appeal to many old and new festival goers alike.

Malc