In reply to Guest? I don't believe that the Caribbean Night event makes any difference to the festivals ability to apply for arts grants. The Caribbean Night is a stand alone event which follows on from the Festival. What it has been able to do in recent years is help with some of the transport costs as by hiring on PA and LX equipment used by the festival it then fell to Caribbean Night to pay for its transport up the M5.
The Caribbean Night has been running for 22 years and didn't prevent the previous Festival Director from securing funding.
The Caribbean Night is the only fund raising event for the Sidmouth Carnival and we can assure you that there was a lot of hard work put into running this years event for a very small return no more than £500 profit. This poor return was mainly due to the cost of the star band ASWAD who didn't attract as many as we thought they would. The late Edwin Starr and Buster Bloodvessel had far greater pulling power.
We do not expect to be lambasted or critized on certain websites and can someone please explain what a true folkie is. Living in Sidmouth as we do and having opened our doors to visitors who run folk clubs around the country, artistes appearing at past festivals including Dougie Mclean and Kieran Halpin I would have thought that we were true folkies.
As far as the Arena is concerned if Steve Wozniak would like to take it on then just let us know, as we are not prepared to take anymore criticism. We want Sidmouth 2005 to be a success.