As a regular folk festival goer I am well connected to many wonderful singers. However I did not know where to start when my wife and I were planning to hire a ceilidh band for a party. Well I decided to begin with Google. I was soon bombarded with information for dozens of ceilidh bands across the country all with flashy websites. I was searching for bands in Oxfordshire and came across this page http://www.shipband.co.uk/oxfordshire/   " online home of Oxfordshire Ceilidh Band, the Ship Band" Well this seemed a promising start, until as I continued my search looking further afield, I found this http://www.shipband.co.uk/warwickshire/ "Welcome to the online home of Warwickshire Ceilidh Band, the Ship Band"    and this http://www.shipband.co.uk/wiltshire/ Well now I was intrigued and it didn't take long to find thht they claim to be from the following places:
Bath
Bristol
London
Exeter
Gloucester
Plymouth
Swindon
Bournemouth
Brighton
Guildford
Kent
Milton Keynes
Oxford
Portsmouth
Reading
Southampton
Cambridge
Essex
Ipswich
Luton
Norwich
Birmingham
Coventry
Stoke-on-Trent
Derby
Leicester
Nottingham
Lancs
Liverpool
Manchester
Bradford
Hull
Leeds
Sheffield
York
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Sunderland
Cardiff
Swansea
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Bedfordshire
Berkshire
Bromley
Buckinghamshire
Cheshire
Chester
Cornwall
Cumbria
Derbyshire
Doncaster
Dorset
Gloucestershire
Grimsby
Hampshire
Harrogate
Hereford
Hertfordshire
Huddersfield
Kendal
Lancashire
Leicestershire
Lincoln
Lincolnshire
Litchfield
Maidstone
North Yorkshire
Northumberland
Oxfordshire
Pembrookshire
Peterborough
Rugby
Shropshire
Somerset
Suffolk
Surrey
Sussex
Taunton
Teeside
The Wirral
Torquay
Totnes
Tunbridge Wells
Warwickshire
West Yorkshire
Wiltshire
Wirral
Worcester
Yorkshire

http://www.shipband.co.uk/about.htm


I was shocked to find that within the folky genre there are people that are trying to hoodwink clients to make a fast buck. Has anyone else had experince of this? Can anyone please recommend a reputable Oxfordshire ceilidh band? Thankyou. L