As a former local, who's been going back to work voluntarily at the festival for the last 10 years or so, I've seen a lot of people's points of view on this festival. I know Sidmouth pretty well, and most locals with a brain know how vital the festival is to the town - it's a complete myth that they hate it. Yes, Sidmouth has a big retired community, and a few of them hate everything, but there are also a lot of normal fun-loving people in that area, and of course a number of people who are healthily indifferent to it all, and are perhaps no more than amused at all those strangers who surely wouldn't wear pewter tankards round their necks in their own high streets.

East Devon District Council are a typical rural conservative council, though, and are never going to have anything like the supportive attitude of the likes of Cambridge City Council (I believe that cambridge folk festival even gets free PAs from the council's own music venues, and has a lot of council employee's time put into it, at the council tax payers' expense).

All of the Sidmouth festival organisers work their flipping ars*s off for that week, because they love it more than anyone. To suggest that any of them are making money out of it is quite amusing - they happen to be those strange sort of people who are prepared to risk a lot in the hope of making something happen that's fun for a lot of people.

Yes, the ticket prices are high - too high for a lot of people, which is a big shame - but they have to be that high because no one will sponsor the festival. At least you can pay to go to single events if you can't afford a season ticket, which is what I always used to do.

Unfortunately, it's the distributed nature of the festival that makes it cost so much, but that's the only sort of festival you can have in a town like Sidmouth. Anyway, it's a lot more fun than Cambridge Folk Festival, which is okay for about a couple of hours, but then you get bored because it's so small, and the bands all play multiple times, and it's the Levellers yet again (I used to live next to the Cambridge festival site, so I was lucky enough to be able to go home and watch TV instead where it got really dull, and look forward to going to Sidmouth!)

Hiring lots of big marquees in separate venues, kitting them out with full PA, etc, and paying big name acts to play in them is never going to be cheap. And the health and safety stuff that now cripples all festivals is even worse for Sidmouth. Lots of people moaned when the Bowd marquee closed, but that's the festival trying to stay viable by making itself a bit smaller ..

And because the town is so accessible to Sidmouth festival ticket holders, the festival catering stalls don't have a captive market, so people aren't buying much food from them (the pubs, bakeries and Somerfields/Trumps, get all that potential income) - even half the drink consumed in the late night extra is bought from Lidl's. And of course you can't expect all those crowds of people soaking up the festival atmosphere in the town to pay, even if the organised side of the festival indirectly generated a lot of that atmosphere ..

So if it takes a shocking statement to wake up the rather selfish businesses of Sidmouth, and the council, then that's a good idea - I'm sure they are serious though, and Steve + co have put so much work into that event, so really perhaps it's only fair for them to quit when the going's good.

It will let people down with a big bump if that's it - the lovely old small festival that people like to remember, with just with a few people singing in the pubs, and with no variety in the dance events, and no capacity for late-night events, well, it might suit people who one day would like to retire there, but personally I prefer to have a bit more fun ..