Festival Saturday

[jacey]

Birdsedge Village Festival.

Every year I think, "This will be my last year as Artistic Director. Someone else can book the acts for the blooming thing!" And then I get suckered into doing it again... and again.... Just sometimes you know why you do a job that takes much of your time, some of your money and most of your energy, because sometimes it all goes right. Such was Saturday!

The forecast pelting rain held off until 9.00 p.m.on Saturday night by which time we'd had a hugely successful event. Bright weather with occasional overcast skies brought out loads of people to the festival field (more than ever, I think) and we got lots of compliments and very few grumbles. There was a constant crowd around the main ring for the outdoor events. We had the Green Howards (redcoat military reenactors), three dance teams (Appalachian, Sword and Clog and Garland dancers), The Jolly Jester children's entertainer and The Mighty Zulu Nation. Plus craft stalls, games and general fundraising stuff like cake-stalls and tombolas. There was a bouncy castle for the kids and a beat the goalie for all ages. St John Ambulance reported that they had no work to do - not even a grazed knee or a cut finger - which is exactly as we like it.

The Mighty Zulu Nation danced and sang:


Music in the Marquee included the dynamic Canadian singer Cara Luft


And Tanglefoot pulled us a full house for the Saturday evening concert - their last northern gig.


And now I'd like to sleep for a week, please.

Comments

comma, please?

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

Appalachian, Sword and Clog and Garland dancers

Where do the second and third types divide? Before Clog, or after?

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Well done! It sounds as though a wonderful day was had by all.

Our local Welsh folk festival Sewiwn Fawr (Big Session) isn't on this year. It gradually got bigger and bigger and then made a huge loss last year due to the amount of policing needed and other costs.

It's the second time a local music festival has gone through that cycle because no one recognises a successful size and says, "Thus far and no more!"

Re: comma, please?

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I should have said Clog & Garland, Appalachian and Sword Dancers if I'd thought about it a little more.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

It's very difficult to know when you've reached optimum size. Our festival is now too big to be a village fete and yet not quite big enough to absorb the infrastructure (and red tape) needed for a full-blown folk festival. (Risk assessments and site security etc.) We pay the same to hire the marquee for a day as we do for a weekend, so if we had the extra energy to put on events on the Sunday as well we could absorb the cost of the marquee into three days of events instead of two. Unfortunately we just don't have the energy. Most of our helpers are - to put it kindly - twelve years older than when we started running the festival. There's a limit as to how many tents they can put up and chairs they can shift and a limit to how long the village ladies can stand in the kitchen serving food for a thousand hungry festivalgoers. one day is pushing it. Two days is more than we can ask.

What would be nice is if another organisation stepped in on the Sunday and hired the festival set-up from us to put on something different - a gathering of reenactors or a meeting of local running clubs or an arts and mime festival for the deaf or... you get the picture.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Well done for all this.