Thanks, sg!

My favourite folk festival is the week-long Whitby Folk Week which usually has something like about 500 events during the week. Okay so there are 4-5 concerts each day and at least one ceilidh each day and the big names get paid for their hard work but that constitutes less than a tenth of the events. The rest is made up of workshops, sessions, small concerts, dance displays, etc. mostly run by volunteers, and people on free tickets, and all of the events are manned by volunteer stewards who get free tickets but work hard. Without the latter part of the programme Whitby would be like those odd little weekend festivals that only put on concerts with the odd big name. Certainly not my cup of tea, but some people are happy with this so I'm not criticising them. Then of course there's the hard working team who organise all of this, flog the tickets, look after the campsites, see to publicity. Many of these do it for love, and I love them for doing it!

I don't think anyone here is seriously suggesting that folk performers shouldn't get paid if they're putting bums on seats. What's to argue about?