John Rouse - the 'success' of PVFF depends on how you look at it. It was organised mainly by and for people who like sitting around in pubs (often smoky, I know) singing and playing and drinking. So it was hardly surpising that the landlords thought it was good.

I don't think that there were nearly as many people visting Beverley as for the 'official' festival. We didn't have big names and we didn't have big venues. The campsite population was well down on previous years, despite the fact that camping was free.

(Non-folkie) locals enjoyed the festival, because they got plenty of information (plenty of flyers and posters and free programmes in 20 pubs before the event) and they could go into a wide variety of pubs and get plenty of quality music for free. Not all of these people would want to pay 8 quid for a concert ticket to see people they probably hadn't heard of, even though the music might be better.

As far as I know the sound in the Westwood was organised by the artists themselves using their own gear.

So, in the end, it's what you want from a festival. I certainly enjoyed it because it consisted mainly of things that I like doing, singing and playing and drinking (yes, and smoking) in pubs.

I think that people are only too happy to pass on negative 'news' about the festival. We've promoted the 'official' festival in our programme, and we've received support from Chris Wade thoughout. People were saying similarly untrue things when Chris took over the organisation when the original committee decided to call it a day for very valid reasons.

Thanks very much for your views.