Looks like folk music can't win. If 'folkies' (ugly word, but it'll do) aren't inverted snobs, we're just straight snobs! There's a spectrum, isn't there? At one end, all-comers' sessions, where no-one cares a damn what you play. At the other, the strictly "no instruments" singers' sessions which crop up at festivals from time to time. I've turned up at singarounds carrying a guitar, not realising I was walking into a hardcore anorak trad. singers' session, and been met with glares far more exclusionary than any exclusion notice. They don't give you the chance to say you've only come to listen.

But isn't a festival like Whitby big enough and democratic enough to accommodate things at the extremes of the spectrum? Nailing up exclusion notices does begin to sound like musical fascism, but I wasn't there. Was it one of the advertised events, or had the participants paid to hire the room, just like any other private function?

BTW, the 'hardcore anorak' bit was tongue-in-cheek; you all know what I mean.