I thought the festival was excellent.

I was lucky enough to be present at some of the real local community involvement events through the Mrs who had worked with one of the local schools on "Traditional Song" in the run up to the festival (not that ALL the songs the kids learned were trad, but they didn't half enjoy Rattling Bog!). This meant that we attended the school's concert in the civic hall. It was fantastic and the audience ("normal" Mum's & Dad's from the local community) got to hear traditional style music and see traditional dance..... with their kids performing it. Not many folkies there though.......

The other half was also the "featured" Festival artist at the service in the Parish Church on Sunday morning. Again this was the "normal" local community embracing the Festival, some members of the congregation either bought her CD or came back to the Church for her gig their (and the wonderful Young'uns) in the afternoon.

It seems to me that this reaching out to the local community (including holding informal events in public bars rather than locked away out of sight in a back room) is a real and quite unusual strength of Holmfirth Festival of Folk.

We also attended the open mic at The Cricket Club, which was fun and anyone was welcome to get up and have a go (and those in the CC were largely respectful of the singers/ players). When we wanted an even more informal session, we sat outside The Cricket club and played and also outside the van on the campsite......... can't really get any more informal than that!

Paul