I normally like to get a ticket for the whole thing, and divide my time between Fringe (free, DIY) events and paid concerts/workshops. That way I get to hear some great professional acts, and lean some new stuff in the workshops, as well as enjoying the tunes, songs and general crack in the sessions.

I think there are plenty of festival-goers of all ages who are not simply intersted in sessions and fringe stuff, but come mainly or entirely for the concerts. Others come entirely for fringe events and absolutely refuse to pay for any musical event if they can help it. Sometime they boast of how they've been jamming with the professional performers at late-night sessions, appearing not to appreciate that these top people wouldn't be there at all unless the rest of us were paying them. That attitude seems a bit parasitic to me.

I think both the above groups are missing out. If you are not yet an active participant in folk, festivals offer entry-level workshops in various sorts of dance, song, and instrument-playing, offering everyone a chance to become actively involved. If people don't take advantage of any of this, it's their choice but they're losing out. Similarly, the singers and players who meet up year after year to sing and play the same old stuff at every event they go to, installing themselves in one bar for the whole weekend, are closing their minds and missing out on the new perfomances by top bands and performers that keep the folk scene from becoming stale and fossilised.

For me, a good festival will have a balance of main and fringe events.

Majre