couple of points

1) the difficulty in running an organistion is = to the square of the distance in miles between the event and the organisers. Running Sidmouth from Matlock is (and always will be) a harder task than it need be.

2) If you are selling out your season tickets and still carrying an operating loss you have failed to grasp 1st year undergraduate supply/ demand economics.

4) If it is truly the case that the festival contributes £5M to the local businesses and you've let them keep it all, I'd be reluctant to underwrite you for the cost of a pint.

5) If you MUST write begging press releases, employ someone who knows how to do it.

There's more to running a festival than being nice guys who REALLY care about the music. Glasgow and Edinburgh (both, I submit) a bit bigger in all respects than Sidmouth haven't run a proper folk festival for many years; mainly because they didn't know how to do it.

Onny