We certainly wouldn't do the same programme on two sets in the same festival - we sometimes do an identical set at folk clubs widely geographically separated, and we have records (now organised in a database) of set lists so when we revisit a club we repeat as little as possible. Our intros tend to change naturally over time and I am wary of developing too much of a fixed script in case somebody starts joining in with the intro!

The CHARM show is scripted but that has to be because it's more complicated and because, intentionally, we are mostly introducing each other's material. But that doesn't matter because the show is (so far) a fairly infrequent performance.

We do hear from the audience side that people like to hear some of the same songs again, which is reassuring if only because it shows that someone is listening. The temptation, though, is to prepare a 'killer' set and use it everywhere, because the alternative involves using weaker material and nobody wants to do that.

I don't know about others, but we work quite hard on scheduling sets for a festival to steer the tricky course between repetition and giving every venue some of your best tunes and songs. We also have to plan round instruments as there's no point in taking all* for a half hour set. I'm hoping that putting the repertoire on a database will also help to keep track of perfectly good material that we haven't done for such a long time that we tend to forget about it.

As for repeating the same set after two years, no excuse for that. We keep arranging new stuff - if we didn't I don't know why we'd be playing folk music at all.

Anahata
*two concertinas, cello, banjo, 5 melodeons, not to mention the merchandise