At the end of the day, I am attempting to organise an event which provides something for everyone who enjoys folk music. I can't please all of the people all of the time, even though I try. I have already given my reasons and explanations for the way I organise the festival and, rest assured, I will continue to do it in the same way in future. Our audience growth in eleven years is over one thousand percent.

Mudcat is a public forum and people often use it to make fully justifiable complaints. If those complaints are aimed at me I will take notice and I will always try to improve the festival. Some will add comments in agreement or disagreement, others will join in because Mudcat is where you meet up with friends. A few will make comments because they need to have attention and to demonstrate their expertise on what they consider FOLK is all about. All musical genres have these people, they are snobs and in folk music we know them as the folk police. Only they really know what we should be listening to (and at what volume).

I find it hard to understand, let alone find answers to the accusations and comments of Mr Red.

"It has been entertainment long since". What should it be; punishment?

"The two are not mutually exclusive but they are in conflict". The two what?

"All I have to go on is the fact that polite conversation 150 yards away outside was more than difficult because of the intrusion". Absolute cobblers and if you are going to …………….rearrange the truth, the rest of your arguments lose their validity.

The most popular concerts were: The Peatbog Faeries, Show of Hands, BellowHead and Salsa Celtica, and they were the loudest of the weekend. The vast majority of people walked out on the Strawbs and Paul Brady sets because they simply didn't like them.

danensis
Meter readings are taken at the FOH mix point on a regular basis. The Environmental Health officers tour the local neighbourhood throughout the festival taking readings and relaying information to Graham on the sound desk. Incidentally, we could have doubled the volume and still been within the parameters set by EH as acceptable.

fliss
No we have not received one official complaint from local residents to date.

John J
Local residents are deceptively close by, on The Mount and Berwick Road, they have a very active residents association who are very sensitive to anything happening on the West Mids Showground.

Now, can we try and put this one to bed. I promise you I'm not trying to make you deaf. Graham and I are always looking to improve the sound, and the rig he used this year is the most sophisticated I've ever seen at a folk festival.

I'll see you at Bromyard, I hope you are going, what a great line up. I'm really looking forward to meeting with Mr Red.

All the Best

Alan