I was reading through the Wildgoose Records web blurb on the Old Swan Band's CD "Swan-Upmanship" (great record, IMHO) and noted this:

"Old Swans band style [in 1974] was deliberately slow in an effort to encourage dancers to dance and the band was criticised greatly by less tolerant members of the English Folk Dance and Song Society for playing the wrong tunes for the dances, playing too slow, changing tunes, using melodeons instead of proper instruments like accordions and worst sin of all, using brass instruments."

Personally, I think it's quite permissible to play what you want, when you want, on what you want and how you want - if nothing else, you're pleasing yourself - and be prepared to accept criticism from others. But it made me wonder, if the band's intention was to play at an easier pace for dancing, where did the "less tolerant" EFDSS definitions of tempo come from in the first place? Just curious...