Kelso is just four miles across the Border and we had our third festival at the beginning of Sept and are hoping to have our fourth this September again - though it is mostly paying events. There are main concerts on the Friday and Saturday nights both with two good acts which cost £15 each night. There is a Saturday afternoon paying concert which generally is £10 - and there is a closing concert on the Sunday which is generally only £5 and there is a free session after that. On the Saturday I put on a free concert from 12 noon to 2pm which is a line up of local musicians. After that there are also sessions in various pubs which again are free. Normally a couple of sing-arounds and also a trad tunes session. Last year the weekend pass was £35 which gained entry to the 4 paying concerts seeing 7 acts in total. Last year that included Old Blind Dogs, Hannah Rarity Trio, Fara and also Seamie O'Dowd.

Re the question over paying or non paying events??? We have sessions every Thursday and Friday just about every week of the year. What we don't have is a lot of visiting acts. So by putting this on we are bringing music to the town for folks here to enjoy - and it seems to also be attracting folks from elsewhere too. Plus we are giving at least a wee bit work to gigging musicians. We used to regularly have a guest act every three months or so on our normal club night - however a section of the members really objected to this which they saw as an infringement on their potential playing time. They objected whether there was a charge for entry to see the guest or not. So this was a compromise which still brought acts to the town except it is on bulk and doesn't interfere with club nights. It is just so hard to try and please everyone.....