Getting non folkie friends to watch the webcast of the mainstage from our local Shrewsbury Folk Festival in Shropshire this August was the biggest help in converting them to want to go to live concerts, heck I've even got a few who no longer consider me 'weird' for enjoying Folk. They had all the preconceived ideas of Folk being a narrow genre. The official videos on the Festival Youtube channel are a great help too in dispelling the myth. Silver Surfers are a growing trend!

Since then one friend came to see The Unthanks in Whitchurch & loved them and another is planning to go to Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2010 and someone else has booked to see the Ukulele Orchestra of GB at Theatre Severn. The fact that Theatre Severn is perceived as 'mainstream' and they are putting on roughly 2 Folk concerts a month next year is making it easier to encourage more people of my mature years to experience all areas of the wonderful world of Folk.

The Webcast from the Festival gave out the right vibes of how varied and energising Folk is at the moment, something that the BBC has failed to do with the miserably belated coverage of Cambridge. I understand there are people coming over/hoping to come over from the US just to go to Shrewsbury purely based on what they saw on the live webcast.

I also nagged the manager of our small market town Arts Centre all year to screen Morris: A life with bells on and finally he did on 10th December to a packed house: but stubbornly will not book Folk Artists as he fears there is no audience, it's so frustrating as the venue is acoustically perfect. So I've given up all hope of walking to an event & will have to continue to drive (as zero public transport for evening return trips!).