I find it very difficult to understand how someone who does not contribute financially to a festival directly can possibly enhance that festival.

Sessions (and folk clubs) are the "bedrock" of the folk scene - just people who love to get together and sing, play or just listen to the music we love.

Festivals on the other hand seem to be elitist "closed shops" with the same old faces headlining, which is why I rarely go to them. What I do object to is that they expect the rest of us to subsidise them either by "contributing financially" or through the various "festival fundraisers" I've seen advertised.

To turn this whole argument on its head, without the clubs and sessions there wouldn't even be any festivals.