We went for the whole week and had a fantastic time mainly playing in sessions. This has been touched on already but there were times when it was hard to 'feel part of' what was going on and no doubt this was due to it being our first time at Whitby and therefore not overly familiar with the local etiquette. There is a long established (25 years we were told) evening session in the Elsinore where the hard core have been playing year in and year out since it formed. A very definite and quite limited repertoire of tunes has evolved and if people strayed too far, or often, there were disapproving mutterings from the hierarchy. Surely, as with most sessions, whether local or festival based, newcomers should be welcomed and 'new' tunes listened to with a modicum of interest. Folk music is a wonderful way of bringing people together and it would be a shame if a genre of exclusivity was allowed to prevail.