Now I am obviously missing something here. "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."..doesn't this old sore apply to Sidmouth. If the organisation isn't making money, how can it blame the council?. Whilst booking Rolf Harris and Lonnie Donegan puts bums in the park (if dry!!), the festival has gone light years away from the ethos of Bill Rutter and the Englishe Folke Dance ande Songe Societie who didn't cry wolf when it rained!. Judging by many contributions to this thread, hardly anyone pays to go to official festival events anyway, many solely singing, playing outside the festival, I suggest that they contemplate on that and either support the festival or accept the consequences. If the organisers of Sidmouth were a properly run business, they would probably be bankrupt now, and the company in receivership. Get back to the roots…most people that appeared at Sidmouth twenty years ago,stayed the week, treated it as a holiday, and didn't screw the organisers. Now most song events by established performers are simply a quick breeze into Sidmouth, do the show, take the money and scarper. Cover the stage area totally, borrow the National Eistedfod Marquees…or just do the whole thing for love!!