Last year's festival WAS somewhat a collection of separate events organised by different people or groups, during the same week of course but with no central organising group.

However Sidmouth 2006 DOES have central organisation - a proper limited company has been set up; there will be more co-ordination between the events and there will be season tickets to allow entry to all the events, except the Ham Marquee concerts as mentioned above.
(No, I don't know the details of how or why the Ham is separate, though I do know who's organising the concerts)

Anahata