Unfortunately for you Dave the forum is free and open to be read by all, and flitting through the threads, both above and below the line, as interest takes my fancy the frequency and content of your posts is there for all to see - hence the conclusion drawn. As to your conclusions and suspicions, no need for me to have ever been a member. I am not interested at all in swaying your opinion on anything, as your opinions are of no interest or importance to me. However, pointing up the inaccuracies and faults in your "anecdotal evidence" does interest me. One reason for the apparent increase in the number of "folk festivals" over the last ten years Dave could be that ten years ago perhaps Folk Festivals that weren't in the UK were not included. Only actual Folk Festivals were included as opposed to myriad "music festivals" that now appear on that list. I could go through the links full list, my cursory examination to date has thrown up some festivals that I would like to go to. By the way would you call a festival that only lasts one night a festival or a concert? I ask as there are quite a number of those included in that link's list of "UK Folk Festivals", likewise competitions, not really festivals of the sort we are talking about, are they?