I dunno, maybe I'm just lucky, or dense. we have two local festivals in our neighbourhood that seem to break all the rules and have a bit of everything. One is in the town of Perth, the Stewart Park Festival, last weekend in July--the other is Blue Skies out in the woods, the very next weekend.

Even in such excellent and varied programs as these, there is a tendency towards booking the HIGH ENERGY acts. Solo players had better be virtuosos and crowd pleasers if they expect to get in there (and the singer-songwriters need these attributes too), seems like everyone needs a band. This upping of the ampereage has kind of spoiled audiences, but there it is.

I remember the last time I went to Winnipeg, Dick Gaughan had a main stage concert, we got pretty close to the front--and found ourselves surrounded with Winnipeggers discussing their pension plans, since there wasn't so much noise from the stage. All they saw was some guy with a guitar and a Scottish accent. I'm like giving them all the evil eye--"don't you %^&*s know great art?" But in contrast, Dick was a very strong presence in workshops and in a mini-concert--a workshop-stage concert.

Two points: from the point of view of a festival organizer, they receive a huge amount of promotional material to consider---and a lot of it is very very good. It's harder to seek out particular performers who might not be the hottest thing on the scene right now--it's a lot easier to book the acts who are on the festival circuit.

Second, and related, it's incumbent on those of us who are trad enthusiasts in a local music scene to try to get some of it into the festival program. If not mainstage, remember they are always looking for workshop ideas, so get in there early with them. At last Stewart Park fest I bugged the artistic director (a friend) enough that she let me host a trad Celtic session on a workshop stage--which was enthusiastically received, but they'd never have thought of doing it otherwise. (Basically, I just invited a crowd of pub session players I know to have at it.)

Well that's enough--gotta go make a living again.

W-O