"A 'folk and roots' festival wouldn't necessarily clash with a 'folk festival'. I would conjecture mostly different audience."

I would agree with what Paul has said on this. In my experience, people who go to these festivals have pretty ecelectic tastes. To try to establish a new festival with a narrow musical policy or audience appeal would be, in my opinion, a recipe for failure. Except for a family crisis on the Saturday morning, we would have been at Cropton but, had it been on a different date, we may well have gone to Helmsley. I appreciate that finding a 'vacant slot' in the festival calendar is becoming a real problem for festival organisers, but I would certainly ensorse Paul's suggestion of talking to each other.

What I find exciting is that there ARE more and more people who are trying to establish local festivals - for me it epitomises the whole spirit of folk music 'ancient and modern'. We no longer go to the big national festivals as the local ones are just so much more fun (and more convenient), so I do hope that Helmsley continues and grows in the future.