I confess I don't know the Scandinavian folk scene, so I don't know if they also charge locals almost double the international rate for admission at their festivals. But even if they do, it feels wrong.

Example: The £150 UK admission proposed here is more than £50 higher than that of the biggest UK music festival (Reading), where this year people can listen to some of the best in contemporary music like Metallica (and don't sneer at the name before listening to some of their ballads, they will surprise you), Blur, Staind, Linkin Park and Placebo. OK, it's not folk - but it is live music and it is fun. And lots of kids (my daughter included) are taking instruments along and they will have sessions together. So the participatory element is there too.

So when my daughter decided to plumb her savings into the Reading event instead of ETHNO 2003, it may have been a little disappointing for me, but I can see her point. And if she, with folkies for parents, decided to go that way, how about others? And who will be the poorer? Folk music, surely.

The formula may be tried and tested in Scandinavia, but is the pricing approach tested equally well? Because it looks like it did not work in the case of my daughter.

I stress again that I am not driven by some "sour grapes" feeling (just because I am an old fuddy-daddy, over the hill and so on; I am, but that wasn't the reason;-)). I do want the initiative to succeed, and that's why I am getting finicky about the pricing.