Roger - The fact is, it takes 18 months to plan the Sidmouth festival, so anyone taking up the job or running Sidmouth 2005 in its present form would have to have started in March, which I think is before Mrs Casey even made their announcement.

Anyone taking over without all the necessary contacts and experience would likely take longer, or make a complete balls up of the 2005 festival, or at least have a very limited event.

It was expected (a few days ago) that next year's festival would consequently be very small. The difference now is that they've decided to go for full scale and use the extra time to make sure they get it right. That's the theory anyway...

Anahata