Obvious that GUEST is a child hater.... So am I. But I'm a parent... so I have a reason to hate the little sods.

I'm quite distressed by the lack of tolerance towards the younger, less able to concentrate members of the folk scene, particularly from performers. This is your audience of the future here, you chuck them out, you chuck out their paying parents too, and they're going to think twice about coming back. And if you are a performer who was last seen on TV hosting a Folk Dance programme, then of course, the child who has watched you encourage people to dance on the telly, is going to want to dance when you play the tunes in a concert. The only way to get them used to sitting in quiet at concerts, is to take them to concerts, where they get thrown out.... Getting them used to sessions is more difficult as the majority are held in pubs where they don't allow children.....

Yes, I've taken my child out when she has become disruptive, but I've also wanted to take several "adults" with me... Why is it that these adults are not treated as pariahs as my child is?

My biggest bugbear for festivals is that the activities close at 4 and don't open again until the next day.... presumably so that the children go home, have tea, go to sleep.... doesn't help those whose hyperactive kids won't sleep till midnight if there is the slightest chance of something going on..... why there are no children's early evening activities? There's that dead zone between 5-7 after the day stuff and before the evening stuff, which could be used for a children's concert. Towersey is useful, it has a mini fairground (roundabout, bouncy castle) and a proper council playground on the main field, so at least I can entertain her for a while, but there are only so many stalls I can look round before she's off somewhere else. Perhaps as someone posted above, there should be full or semi sedation provided for children at festivals.

Dranouter festival, Belgium(1st weekend in August, 15k from Ypres) has the best child facilities I've ever seen at a festival. There was a whole area of the festival field set aside for them with an activity tent, dance/disco area, adventure playground/jungle gym, water play, resident entertainers, junk play, scrap model building, singing and story games (pity we don't speak Flemish that well, but baby gibberish is the same the world over), sand pit, food stall (not just sweets), chill out/quiet nap area, and other stuff we couldn't work out how to get into, not speaking the language well enough. The numbers, because of the size of the area, were unlimited, the crayons, paper, blankets, junk etc were provided, there was no charge other than display of your festival ticket and you could stay with your child, or leave them, and it DIDN'T SHUT AT 4.00pm! But them the continent have always treated children as human beings, rather than a seperate sub species.

We brought down the colour bar and racial segregation, let's see if we can do it for children!

LTS