Set-up #1

The main two concert marquees are up and from tomorrow we'll start putting the stages in - we're at least a day ahead of where we were last year and will hit the ground running tomorrow when the majority of the set-up team arrive on site.

Here's a couple of pictures from the site today, the third concert marquee will be up tomorrow - this is a new marquee and will be a little different inside....we'll take a pic as soon as it's ready!

The Site Set-Up / Weather

Just a quick update to let you know that we've started the set up of the site today - the main concert marquees will all be on site today, and should all be safely up by tomorrow.

The site set-up team arrive in earnest on Monday, and from then on in I should have some pictures to post.

Have just been checking in on the weather, the set up week looks warm and dry and the ground looks like being in perfect condition for the festival....it does look as though it's going to cool off a little by the weekend though, so an evening jumper might be required!

Shirt #4

Well, not so much shirts as ladies vests.

Last year we tried ladies vest for the first time and they sold out by Saturday lunchtime! - this year we've opted for a couple of styles.

Our cedar green top is described as a 'strap vest' in the catalogue and thinner straps.

The baby pink top has thicker straps....the pictures decribe it better!

Both are available in S, M & L and sizes are pretty generous.

The Programme

The finished printed programme arrived last week and we've shipped copies out to all those who pre-ordered copies when they bought tickets.

Shrewsbury Tourist Information centre (has now moved to Rowleys House from the Music Hall) have copies available NOW!

Beer!

Regular festival attendees will know that we really push the boat out with the bars, and this year is even better; here's the full list of beers and ciders & perrys that will be available over the week.....it's probably not even worth considering working your way through them, although doubtless many will try!

REAL ALES
Ma Pardoes
Entire
Original
Dark swan
Broughs Pale ale

Enville Ales
Enville Ale
Ginger Beer
Enville White
Old Porter
Nailmaker Mild
Simply Simpkiss

Timothy taylors
Landlord

Woods Brewery
Quaff
Craven Ale
AAA
Shropshire Lad
Woods Wonderful

Hanby Ales
Cherry Bomb
All Seasons
Scorpio Porter

Wye Valley Brewery
Best Bitter
Butty Bach
Dorothy Goodbodys
HPA

Salopian Brewery
Darwins Original
Shropshire Gold
Hop Twister
Lemon dream

Hobsons Brewery
Twisted spire
Town crier
Hobsons mild
Best bitter

3 Tunns brewery
XXX
1642 Bitter
Solstice
Clerics Cure

Hook Norton
Hooky bitter
Old Hooky
Hooky dark

Willoughby Brewing Co.
Tried and trusted
Trusted Gold

Greens gluten free beers
Bottled selections only

CIDERS & PERRYS

Burrow Hill Cider co.
Broadoak Cider co
Riches Cider
Brook Farm
Newtons Court Cider
Gwatkin Cider
Hecks
Dunkertons
The Welsh Cider Co
Westons Cider
West Croft Cider Co.
Barbourne Cider and Perry co.

...and if all that isn't enough, there will also available on draught
Guinness
Fosters
John Smiths Smooth
Stowford Press Cider
Kronenbourg 1664
Ciderhouse Special Cider

GOOD LUCK!

The Weather

We all know that constantly checking the weather forecast is a stupid game to play, but we all do it anyway...so here goes.

For the past few years, Metcheck have been pretty good with forecasts from two weeks out...here's what they're saying for the festival weekend (and importantly for us, the set up week which starts a week today is looking great too)

T-Shirt #3

...so after being 'advised' in July by the entire female contingent of the festival committee that we needed some slightly larger shirts, we now have an extra shirt for the festival.

It's a fitted ladies v-neck that we only ordered in sizes 16 & 18.

The Heather Rose ladies shirt (pictures a few blogs below) is in S, M & L, which are about sizes 10, 12 & 14.
So this year we have a range of fitted ladies tees across the full size range...and I shall escape the next meeting unscathed!

The Shrewsbury Folk Festival Travel Bug

Thought you might like to read an excerpt from a press release that's been sent out today.....

Oswestry Family Win Shrewsbury Folk Festival Tickets Thanks to Transatlantic Treasure Hunt

An Oswestry family will be paying their first visit to Shropshire's biggest music festival this year after winning a geocaching challenge set in America.

Ken and Pat Tomkins won weekend tickets to the sell-out Shrewsbury Folk Festival after successfully retrieving a travel bug from Washington DC as part of the global craze where people search for hidden caches using GPS systems.

The travel bug - which is a item that can be moved from cache to cache - was originally left in Memphis, Tennessee by festival director and keen geocacher Neil Pearson when he attended the North American Folk Alliance Conference in February 2008.

It was then discovered and moved to a hiding place in downtown Washington. Mr and Mrs Tomkins, who have geocached across the UK as well as in Egypt, Goa and Peru, eventually caught up with the travel bug when they visited their daughter in April this year and brought it back to the UK.

They will complete the travel bug's journey of more than 4,200 miles when they go to the festival at the West Mid Showground from August 28 to 31 with their 16-year-old grandson James.

For more geocaching information head to http://www.geocaching.com/

SOLD OUT!!!

SOLD OUT!!!

That's it folks. As of around 20 minutes ago we sold our last pair of tickets.

Thanks to all of you who are heading to Shrewsbury in a couple of weeks, we hope you have a great time!

T-Shirt #2

This is the first of the fitted ladies shirt, it's in a dusty rose colour (officially 'Heather Rose').

We have these in S, M & L

All the shirts were taken to our July committee meeting for everyone to look at - people loved the shirts. The other comments from that meeting are echoed in the response to the first shirt blog from a couple of days ago.......so we went away and ordered a second ladies shirt that arrived here earlier today. Will post pics of the alternative ladies shirt this week.

Workshop Programme

We've now finalised our workshop programme for the festival, workshops start at 10am on Saturday and they run right through to Monday afternoon.

So if you're interest in learning Orkney tunes with The Chair, joining in vocal workshops with the Spooky Men, or even walking away from a FREE recording session with a fully mixed CD then the details are all here

T Shirt Design #1

We have a good number of shirts this year, we'll show you them all here on the blog over the next 10 days or so....here's shirt #1

Mens Charcoal (sizes Small - XXXL)

Washed black colour, front image is centred on chest (17cm width)

New Darwin Song Project website

The official release of the Darwin Song Project CD (Amazon, Play, iTunes etc) is 31st August, and in anticipation of the release the project website has been redesigned.

The new site is a permanent record of the whole project, and photo galleries, videos and full background information.

The eight artists gather together again at the festival on Saturday night for a complete performance of all the songs from the songhouse.

Details on picking up the Darwin CD ahead of the festival and general release date are available on the website.

Tickets

We're really getting down to the final few tickets now...

Full Festival Tickets
Right now there are only 277 adult weekend tickets remaining and that is moving down pretty fast (adult weekend tickets are valid from Fri - Mon). We're certainly going to sell out well ahead of the festival.

If you're intending coming to the festival, please pick up your tickets as soon as you can as - once these 277 have gone, then that's it, no more will be made available.

Day Tickets
We no longer have individual day tickets left for Saturday, Sunday or Monday, but there are still a few available for Friday night (and obviously full weekend tickets are valid for all days)

Jez Lowe, Chris Wood & Mark Erelli 'We'll Hunt Him Down'

The fourth and final of the Darwin Song Project videos that we'll be uploading before the festival - 'We'll Hunt Him Down' came towards the end of the Darwin set and received a huge response on the night.

Here are Jez's notes on the song from the CD booklet....
'A fond pastiche of the American "outlaw ballad", inspired by a school-teacher friend in Pennsylvania, who in 2004 was reprimanded by his principal for alluding to Darwin's theories in a history lesson to a class of 14 year-old students'.

Twitter

As well as the blog, we've decided to use Twitter.
We set up the account months ago but it's taken us a while to decide to use it!

There are going to be two of us tweeting, maybe more if they fancy it (rather than just me on the blog), and it allows us to post updates that wouldn't normally make it onto here...I think the run up to the festival should be interesting as you'll hopefully get an idea as to some of the smaller jobs that go into making the festival work!

The link you need is http://twitter.com/shrewsburyfolk

Emily Smith, Stu Hanna, Jez Lowe & Rachael McShane - The Earl of Darwin's Farewell / Save A Place

Another one of the Darwin Song Project songs, written by Stu Hanna, Jez Lowe and Emily Smith, and performed by Emily Smith, Stu Hanna, Jez Lowe and Rachael McShane.

‘Save A Place’ is a plea by Emma Darwin to her husband, for him to remember her in little moments during his time at work. It contains and was inspired by the tune “The Earl of Darwin’s Farewell”, taken from Henry Atkinson’s 17th century North-East fiddlers tune book.

Boxfresh Organics

We're proud to team up with Boxfresh Organics again this year - we believe we have the best festival shop anywhere with a unique range of fresh food and provisions.

Boxfresh have now decided their range for this year and where they will source their stock from......this is hot off the press and straight from their website

Not long now until Shrewsbury Folk Festival, a huge highlight in the Boxfresh calendar. Building on the success of sponsoring last year’s festival we have upped the package this year and have moved from sponsoring the Village Stage to sponsoring Marquee 2 where there’s a whole load of topline acts performing over the weekend.

We’re naturally bringing back the shop after the rip roaring success and good time we had last year. This year we will double the floorspace (or should that be grassspace in a tent?) to accommodate a broader range of lovely products.

What we’re aiming at is a shop that will supply not only all the festival basics but also some really great local products at sensible prices. So in addition to the camp necessities such as loo roll, newspapers, sweets, tins of beans, toothbrushes etc., we’ll also have our own great range of locally grown organic fruit, veg, speciality cheeses and store cupboard items. In short we’re looking to keep as many festival goers as possible on the festival site without feeling the need to dash off to the supermarket (you do enough of that the rest of the year don’t you?)

We’ll have a big focus this year on a few key local food partners:-

Artisan breads from Gains Park Craft Bakery of Shrewsbury. In addition to traditional white, harvester and wholemeal, we’ll have a stunning range of bespoke craft breads covering ciabatta, focaccia and rye. Baked fresh overnight just for you and brought in fresh and warm each morning. Please form an orderly queue!

Speciality cakes from Baked For You of North Shropshire. A great range of goodies including flapjacks, fruit cakes and tarts. Ideal for taking back to the tent during that afternoon lull.

Dry cured bacon, speciality sausages and hams from Buttercross of Market Drayton. We’ll also have in stock the Buttercross BBQ pork pack for a tenner which is a great price for a whole lot of very high quality free range pork.

Organic milk from Welsh farming co-op Calon Wen (winners of BBC Radio 4’s Food Producer of the Year 2008)

We’re really looking forward to the festival and we’re proud to be associated with one of the nation’s premier live music events. What we bring along in terms of sponsorship and the shop is something really special that is probably not matched anywhere else in the country. Roll on August bank holiday weekend!

Mark Erelli & Karine Polwart

With the Darwin Song Project CD now finished, we're working on adding the edited sound to the video we took of the concert....we'll get through all the songs eventually.

'Mother of Mysteries' was written and performed by Mark Erelli & Karine Polwart, and here are Mark's notes from the CD booklet..

"Based on one of the most well-known passages from The Origin Of Species: "There is grandeur in this view of life … from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

FREE webcast!

This year, as well as putting the concerts on large screens in the main marquee, the Shrewsbury Folk Festival’s main stage concerts will be broadcast as a FREE live feed on our website.

We successfully used a multiple camera mix last year that was broadcast live on site to various screens – this year we will have two 10’ x 7’ plasma screens each side of the main stage, as well screens in artists’ reception etc.

For a few years’ Alan Surtees the festival’s director has been looking at ways for festival goers with very young children to still enjoy the evening concerts from their caravan/tent; and by combining the web feed with free onsite WI-FI for all, those who bring laptops etc will at least be able to enjoy some of the concert atmosphere.

The upshot of this is that anyone, anywhere in the world will be able to see the main stage of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival live and with perfect sound on their computers.

We’re pretty sure this is a first for any folk festival, and are obviously excited by the project – we’ll post timings and more details a little closer to the festival over the August bank holiday weekend.

Wi-Fi on site

We've toyed with the idea of having wi-fi at the festival for a few years now, but this year have finally taken the plunge and there will be FREE WI-FI access on site for festival goers.

We're still working out the final details, but the transmitter will be at the back of the main marquee and should cover a large proportion of the festival site....

We'll post full details on the blog, facebook and the main website when we have them.

SFF Tune workshops 2009

This year Izzy has organised two tune workshops, one aimed at beginners and and one at improvers.

From the Tune Workshops page of the main SFF website link you will find downloadable tunebooks and supporting materials.

The Improvers Session follows the same format as previous years where we will play any set of tunes requested from this year's book.

The all-new Beginners Session has nine well known tunes and accompanying audio files so you can play along and practice the tunes before the workshop.

As always, our aim is not to teach you the tunes on the day but to give you common ground with which to enjoy each session. Enjoy!

Those who've attended these sessions over the last couple of years, will remember how friendly and accessible they are, and how those who've never had the confidence to sit in on a session in the past have sat in, played and loved every minute of the experience.

Have a look at the tunebook, listen to the MP3 samples, practice a little, and then join us over the weekend!

Breabach - School's Project Year 2

We’ve just completed year two of our three year Heritage Lottery funded school project where we take musicians into school for a full week to explore the folk traditions of Great Britain.

Year one saw The Demon Barber Roadshow, and this year we looked at Scottish traditions, and had fantastic band Breabach in Radbrook Primary School for a week, with a final concert in the Theatre Severn on Friday 19th June with 30 children from the school.

The band performed a concert exploring the dance, music and song of the Scottish tradition, and throughout the concert they were joined on stage by the 30 children who had been working with the band all week – the children demonstrated Scottish set and step dances, traditional song, and 10 children played traditional tunes on whistles.

It was a fantastic week for the band and the school, but especially so for the 30 children who worked with the band over the week.

There will be a full report and pictures of the full week our website in the coming month.

Richard Shindell - The Hive

The hundred people who packed into our first small show at The Hive in Shrewsbury, were treated to a world-class performance from Richard Shindell.

In the late afternoon he held a songwriting workshop that saw him explain how some of his songs had come about, from how tricky last verses had just fallen into his lap through good fortune; to how his newest song, 'Abi's Gone to the Country', had been written in a couple of hours in Florence only days ago.

The sound for the evening was a perfect as could be imagined and Richard held the audience for 2hr 5mins with a superbly varied and engaging set.

Those fortunate enough to be in the audience will never forget the atmosphere of the room - it genuinely was an evening of real magic.

We're already looking into other shows in the same venue...we'll keep you posted.
Photo courtesy of Alan Surtees

Darwin Artist Video Interviews

Folk magazine website Spiral Earth have just listed video interviews with each of the Darwin artists (Chris Wood, Karine Polwart, Jez Lowe, Mark Erelli, Emily Smith, Rachael McShane, Krista Detor - not sure where Stu Hanna's video went!)

http://www.spiralearth.co.uk/video/default.asp?channel=/video/darwin.xml

These videos were recorded on the Monday of the songhouse week, and are excellent interviews that show the thoughts of the artists in the middle of the songwriting process.

RADIO BROADCAST TONIGHT
Radio Devon are broadcasting a Darwin programme this evening (Thursday 11 June, 7pm - 10pm) where you have the chance to hear some of the songs from the Darwin Song Project.

It's likely there will be between 8 and 10 songs broadcast through the 3 hour programme, with most being played after 9pm.

It will be available to listen live from 7pm here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/

Darwin Song Project - MP3 samples & pre-orders

THE CD
The mixing of the CD is now complete (mixed by Stu Hanna), and earlier today
the disc and artwork were signed off and sent for manufacture - we should
have finished copies around June 12th - as soon as the disc arrives in stock
then all pre-orders will be fulfilled.

There are details of the CD, along with MP3 audio samples of every track on
the Darwin Song Project website

We're now taking pre-orders for the disc on the Darwin website (paypal
only), if you'd prefer to pay by credit card or cheque, the disc is also
available from Fish Records

We also have limited quantities of the fantastic Darwin Song Project brochure -
this is only available direct through the Darwin website.

-------------------------------------------------

CONCERT
The artists all gather together again in August 2009 at the Shrewsbury Folk
Festival, where they will perform the entire concert again on Saturday 29th
August.

Individual Saturday tickets have now sold out, but weekend tickets that
allow you entrance to venues for the whole weekend are still available; if
you'd like to see all 8 artists on stage performing the Darwin Song Project
concert then please pick up your tickets sooner rather than later as it's
almost certain the festival will sell out in advance, festival tickets

Darwin Song Project - Clock of the World

We're getting close to sending the Darwin CD off to be manufactured - just the odd tweak to audio here, an edit on the pack design there and we'll be done......we expect to have finished retail copies here by July.

In the meantime, here's a quick peek at one of the songs 'Clock of the World', written by Krista Detor and performed by Krista, Karine Polwart, Rachael McShane and Emily Smith.

The video and audio were recorded at the Darwin Song Project Concert in Shrewsbury on March 19th 2009.

Shrewsbury Concerts - Richard Shindell

The festival works with various partners in Shrewsbury to promote folk shows in the town over the year - our first concert was Show of Hands and Megson last week, and we have Seth Lakeman, Breabach, Oysterband and Chris Wood coming up at Theatre Severn throughout 2009.

These are obviously large shows (650 seats), and we've been keen to arrange some smaller, more traditional folk club type shows.

Our first 'folk-club' show is Richard Shindell on Sunday June 14th, at the fantastic Hive Theatre in the centre of Shrewsbury.

There is both a concert in the evening, and a workshop in the afternoon, it will be a fantastic event....

Richard's appearance at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival in 2007 was his first trip to the UK in a decade, and the chance to bring him back to Shrewsbury after only two years was certainly too good an opportunity to miss.
One of the finest acoustic singer/songwriters of his generation, American born but Argentinean resident, Shindell is an enigmatic singer/songwriter whose work veers from the bitterly comic to the profoundly spiritual and all points in-between. A stellar guitarist and singer, Richard Shindell is a master-craftsman and this intimate show is a rare opportunity to see him in the UK.

This show is being put together by Shrewsbury Folk Festival and Shropshire Council in conjunction with their 'Seen it, Done it, Got Creative" scheme, and there will be a guitar and songwriting workshop with Richard Shindell on Sunday afternoon.

Workshop tickets are FREE, but must be applied for - please email Neil Pearson for details neil@shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk

Concert tickets are available from the Hive, 01743 234970

Ticket Sales

The take-up of festival tickets during the early bird offer has been phenomenal.

This means that the remaining tickets available for sale is reduced and we feel that the festival will sell-out before the event starts on August Bank Holiday.

We do not wish to create a panic because we are sure weekend tickets will be available for several months yet. However, many of our regulars turn up on the weekend to buy their tickets and we do not want them to be disappointed. So please consider getting your tickets sooner rather than later.

Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman

When the festival first moved to Shrewsbury in 2006, we booked Kathryn & Sean to play at a function in the Spring where the festival was formally introduced to the great and good of Shrewsbury.

It was always our intention to book them to play at the festival proper, but with Sean committed to Seth's band it was always a real problem.

We kept a Saturday slot open for the duo this year, and we're proud to announce that we've confirmed them for the festival in what will be their first show for a couple of years.

The full bio and details will be added to the main website in the next week or so - and that completes the line-up for this year!

BBC Radio 4 Broadcast

The Darwin Song Project documentary was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Fri 27th March), sadly it's no longer available on the BBC listen again feature (the contract we signed only allowed one week of listen again); it was a fascinating piece of radio with interviews with the artists and excerpts from many of the songs. I'm looking into the possibility of a stream from the main website, but it will take months

The tracks are being mixed for the live CD which will be available later in the year, and the artists get together again at the festival in August.

We have a great set of pictures from Carey Gough, we'll work out an online gallery in the next week or so.....here's one to keep you going!

Darwin Pictures

The Darwin Song Project ended on Thursday with a concert in the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury; the artists played an exceptional concert of 19 new songs to a sold out audience in the theatre and the quality and consitency of the songs was better than even we and the artists expected!

We'll start posting more reports and information about the project in the coming days, but in the meantime photos from the concert are beginning to appear.

Allan Price (BBC Shropshire) has some great pictures from the press afternoon and concert on flickr here

We also had an official photographer (Carey Gough) with the artists, we expect to have her pictures soon, but in the interim here are a couple of shots, one that I took in the house, alongside an official group picture from Carey.

Darwin Song Project

The artists all gathered at the song house on Friday evening where they had the chance to share supper and talk with Randal Keynes (Charles Darwin’s great great grandson) – since then they’ve been working on new songs as individuals or in groups of varying sizes, and these songs will be premiered at the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury on Thursday March 19th.

There was a media afternoon at the song house today, where the press had chance to interview artists and thanks to the fantastic weather we had chance to take our formal photographs for the project and the forthcoming CD release.

While our photographer Carey was carefully positioning the artists for the pictures, I snuck in and took a couple of quick shots too – the picture above is from the lawn in front of the songhouse.

During the day I heard a number of songs in progress that all sounded fantastic – it will be interesting to see how these develop over the next couple of days......

2009 Map

We've finalised the layout for the site for this year, and rather than the traditional plan of the site we've used in the last couple of years we've commissioned a new 'map'.

This map will be printed in the programme, but here's a quick peek at the site for this year, and clicking the image will take you to a larger PDF of the image.

Beginners Tunebook and Workshop

For those of you who are just starting to play traditional tunes, you can now have something in common with many other players at the festival - the ability to play nine well known session tunes.

Our Beginners Tunebook can be downloaded from www.shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk/tunebook, and you have plenty of time to learn them in preparation for the festival in August!

Our resident tune monkeys are working on some mp3s of the tunes, but for now you can use the 'listen to' link located at the bottom of individual tunes on http://www.folktunefinder.com/.

When you get to the festival, look out for the Beginners Tunebook workshop and we'll work through the tunes individually, at a steady speed. So there's really no excuse, this is the perfect opportunity to dip your toes into sessions at the festival!

We're working on a few changes for the improvers tunebook for 2009 and will post details soon.

Duhks - Tania's Fiddle Workshop

Tania Elizabeth's fiddle workshop was really well attended at the 2008 festival, and we know that you were all promised a video/workbook of the tune you worked on ('Reel Du Pendu').



Tania took lots of email addresses at the festival, but in the melee of touring and moving house she misplaced them - she's asked me to apologise to you all, but the good news is that the video is here! Good luck!

Online Tickets on sale now!

On-line tickets went on sale earlier today from the festival website, this year online ticket sales are available with no booking fee!

This is obviously the quickest and cheapest way to order tickets, and up until April 1st our tickets are available at the special early bird rate.

We've also just sent out newsletter off to the printers today, some of you will receive these in the post, and in the next week it will be available on the main website.

If you can't wait,

there's a PDF of the colour segments here

the information insert is here

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

John Wesley Harding, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

New Rope String Band, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

Lunasa, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

2009 Line-up Announced

We launched our new 2009 website (here), and have announced most of the line-up for the two main marquees.

We still have a couple of acts to confirm for the big concerts, and obviously a host of programming for the smaller venues - we'll announce these in the coming weeks.

In no particular order, the line-up for 2009 includes

The Proclaimers
Seth Lakeman  
Eric Bibb  
The Dhol Foundation
Show of Hands
Hoven Droven
Spooky Men's Chorale  
Patrick Street
Chris Wood
Ollabelle
Lau
Jez Lowe
Megson
Karine Polwart
Chris Smither
Breabach
Corinne West
Mark Erelli
Rachael McShane
Emily Smith Band
Krista Detor
The Dust Poets
Duncan McFarlane Band
The Wilsons
Fran McGillivray & Mike Burke

Online tickets will be on sale around the middle of January, but they're on sale now for telephone orders on 01746 768813

Darwin Song Project

You may have seen the half page teaser for Darwin in the programme for the 2008 festival…..we’re now close enough to the event to flesh out the detail a little.

The website for the Darwin Song Project is here, with bios for artists and more details on the project.

The headline details are

Chris Wood, Karine Polwart, Jez Lowe, Stu Hanna, Mark Erelli, Emily Smith, Krista Detor and Rachael McShane will all take part in a songwriting retreat for 7 days to write songs that have a relevance and resonance to Charles Darwin.

There will be a premiere of the songs at the new Theatre Severn on March 19th, and all the artists will get together again at the festival in August for a further performance.

BBC Radio 4 are involved in the project and will broadcast a documentary on the week in the house and look at how the songs developed from their earliest drafts up to the final performance.

Tickets for the Theatre Severn show are on sale now – there’s only a very limited number of seats available, so if you’d like to attend then please order them early (direct from the theatre here)

Bellowhead, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

The Duhks, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

The Demon Barber Roadshow. Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

Oysterband, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

Eilen Jewell Band, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

The Doonans, Shrewsbury 2008

The above link is to youtube, but we have a high quality version on the main festival website here

Shrewsbury Folk Festival and the Theatre Severn

The festival is proud to announce a partnership with new Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

The theatre opens in early 2009, and the festival is heavily involved in the folk and acoustic programming for the venue.

Over the course of the year the festival will co-promote shows with the theatre under the banner of “Shrewsbury Folk Events”.

The first three concerts are

March 19th 2009 Darwin Song Project
April 16th Show of Hands (with Megson as support)
May 22nd Seth Lakeman (a very rare show in a seated venue)

We’ll announce more details on each show next week, but tickets are on sale now here where you can check availability of seats.

Hope House. Thank you.

Thanks to the generosity of our festival goers, we raised thousands of pounds at this year's event to fund music therapy for children with life limiting illnesses who attend the Hope House Hospice in Shropshire.

As those of you who came to the West Mid showground on Sunday will know, volunteers from the hospice were outside the two marquees after the afternoon concerts collecting with buckets - and boy, did you fill them! Painstaking counting revealed a massive £1,054 was raised via the collection and a further £130 from the collecting tins dotted around the site over the weekend.

When we made our fundraising commitment to Hope House we agreed to donate a proportion of our tickets sales - we are still totalling up, but we already know it will be in excess of £3,000!

Some of us committee members were lucky enough to get the chance to visit Hope House and see the work it does and we have no doubt that every penny you donated will make a real difference.

Many of the children at Hope House have limited speech, learning difficulties or a severe disability and music is a great outlet for them. It costs around £8,000 - all of which has to come from the £3.5 million the charity has to raise each year - and thanks to our wonderful visitors we can now fund over half the cost.

So thank you from everyone at Shrewsbury Folk Festival and at Hope House - we'll fill you in on the final total as soon as we know it!

Pictures and Videos

We now have a selection of pictures available on the main festival website here

A quick look at flickr reveals hundreds of pictures from this years’ festival, and youtube has performances from almost everybody, you can find almost the entire Bellowhead set on there.

If you have pictures or videos of the festival online, then thank you very much, we (and we imagine people who attended the festival) love searching for them during idle moments…if you do have any online then please post a comment with a link below so we can all take a peek!

Of the official pictures (around 4000) taken by Sabine of Virtual Shropshire, I’ve chosen my favourites from each day - not necessarily the best pictures, but shots that capture the atmosphere of the festival.



In order, from top to bottom
Friday Breabach open the festival in Marquee 2
Saturday bellydancing in the dance tent
Sunday The Duhks finishing their excellent village stage concert
Monday Bellowhead enjoying a mid-song dance
click any image for a larger view

It's over!!!

If you came to the festival, we hope you had a great time and that your journey home was safe.

We're sorting through photos and videos, it will take a few days but we'll post links up when we have them all arranged.

In the meantime, please leave comments here to let us know what you enjoyed, what the highlights were and where you think we can improve - we take everything on board and this helps us shape the festival for next year

For me, The Duhks village stage set, Nancy Kerr & James Fagan's harmony workshop, and the Demon Barber Roadshows concert with the children from Oxon were my three favourite moments.............over to you.

It's here

The caterers and traders started setting up last night, and barring a couple of stagglers they're all here.

The site set up is almost complete - the main stage is looking fantastic and has some new stage lights this year (wait 'til you see them!), and the rest of the site has all come together really well.

It rained yesterday, and there's a little mud around the site - some of this will go, but obviously in the high traffic areas there's a chance it might hang around. We're dealing with it with matting and wood chippings, and the forecast is good for the weekend, so hopefully it won't be too much of a problem.

Doors open at 10am - see you sometime over the weekend. Hope you all have a great festival!

Marquees

Almost all the marquees are up, and tomorrow the stages should all be in place – in comparison to last year we’re a little further forward in the set-up.

There are a couple of other changes of note, 'The Big Shed' (the youth venue), is now a large tent with a wooden floor and although it's only moved a little, it's in a much nicer spot.

Our open-mic tent (Sabrina) has also moved into a more prominent position, and will encourage more people to stop and listen.

The main bar is now in a much larger marquee, and the Dr Sunshine children's tent is now a white marquee (rather than the multi-coloured marquee from last year, that made painting and generally working with colours an 'interesting' experience!)

Here are a few shots from around the site.

Artists' Reception

Thought you might like a little insight into what goes into the artists’ reception area, here are some of the numbers that make up some of hospitality we provide for artists at the festival....

3.6kg Ground Fresh Coffee (to make 96 litres)
400 assorted muffins
400 tea bags
60 herbal tea bags
240 cans of Coke
48 bottles of wine
9kg of sweets (3 x 3kg bags of pink and blue sweets from Liquorice Allsorts, Jelly babies and sugared almonds)
12 litres of orange juice
1000 milk stix
1000 sugar bags
1500 bio-compostable coffee cups
1500 wooden stirring sticks

and that doesn’t include artists’ riders!

Site preparation - Monday

Things have started to move along today and the larger marquees are all on site, I left the site at around 3pm today and the huge bar marquee was close to finished, and the specialised team of around 15 who come with the main marquee had started the lengthy process of putting it up…when I head down to the site tomorrow that should be finished…..

Over the next few days we start on the smaller marquees such as the ticket office, merchandise stall etc., with an aim to being finished by Thursday.

There will be lots of interesting photos to show over the next couple of days, this isn’t one of them……

the main marquee as it arrived.
a more exciting picture tomorrow is guaranteed!

Getting here

Our main website has full directions to the festival site, but for those travelling under the guidance of SatNav, the GPS co-ords are

N 52° 43.020
W 002° 45.742

(if you copy these into Google Earth, they take you to within a few feet of one of entrances)

and the postal address is

West Mid Showground
Berwick Road
Shrewsbury
SY1 2PF

Site set-up

Although setting the site up starts in earnest tomorrow when around 50 of our set up team arrive; a few have started work tonight – I’ve just called into the showground, and Josie’s Marquees are already setting up marquee 2 (the yellow and blue big top), and a few hardy souls are on site getting things ready for tomorrow.

It's no mean feat setting up a small town that can cater for the needs of 7000 people, and the stewards who help us set up the site both work hard and do a fantastic job. We’ll post photos of the set up as the week goes on, and hopefully we’ll capture the guys putting up the huge marquee as it’s a sight to behold!

…and just a quick mention of the weather, the forecast on Metcheck is getting better and better, and it’s now showing warm and dry days with the temperature up to around 22°c (here’s hoping!)

and so we come to the weather………..

Rather than torture ourselves alone by watching the weather forecast change on a daily basis, it only seems fair to invite everybody to join in.

It’s been all over the place for a few weeks, but is beginning to settle down, so hopefully the prediction over the next few days should be fairly accurate (Metcheck were spot on last year) – for 2008 they're suggesting we'll be dry apart from the odd shower on Saturday.

click the image for Metcheck's full festival forecast

Cider and bars

The second and final instalment in the bar series, to follow up on the beer and bars post (see 30th July)

The ciders that will be available at the festival are

Riches Traditional (sweet medium and dry)
Burrow Hill Traditional (sweet medium and dry), Cider brandy, Pomona, 3 different types of farm pressed apple juice
West Croft Cider Janet’s Jungle Juice
Hecks Traditional (medium), Kingston black single varietal, Perry
Broadoak Cider Co. traditional (sweet), Kingston black, Moonshine, Perry
Dunkertons Organic Cider Organic (medium sweet, medium ,dry)
Ross on Wye Cider Perry, traditional (medium)
Brook Farm Traditional (medium, sweet, dry), Perry
Westons Old Rosie, Stowford Press
Bulmers Traditional (medium and dry)
Inches Traditional (dry)
Thatchers Perry
Cider House Special

Plus two other unknown varieties that will be sourced when these are all collected from Somerset & Herefordshire!

Quite frankly, that’s a scary list – good luck if you try and get through them all!

Programmes

Our programmes for this years' festival have arrived, and we've shipped out copies to all those who ordered one when they booked their tickets – they should be with you over the next few days.

If you live in Shrewsbury (or are visiting the town before the festival), we’ve just delivered some programmes to the tourist information centre in the Music Hall, and these are available for you to drop by and buy one right now!

For everyone else, the programmes will be available from the ticket office or merchandise stall during the festival.

Facebook & MySpace Sites

This blog is a great way for us to keep you up to date with things that are happening over the course of the year, but there are two other internet groups that are dedicated to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival – they’re both open for all to join, and offer different ways for you to be involved with the festival.

Facebook – a group where those interested in the festival can come and join in discussions, post pictures of the festival etc. There are lots of pictures from last year, as well as members leaving comments…at the moment we have members offering lifts, someone needing a lift, and discussions about last years’ acts to highlight just three. It’s a friendly group so come on and join in here

MySpace – a site that has much in common with the blog, but with the addition of streaming audio, we currently have 4 full tracks from The Duhks, Oysterband, Eilen Jewell and John Wesley Harding for people to listen to. Have look the MySpace site here

We read and respond to all comments we receive either here on the blog or on the Facebook and MySpace sites; the more you let us know, the better we’ll be - so feel free to join in!

Dance at Shrewsbury

We take the dance aspect of our festival seriously, and are committed to providing a varied and exciting range of bands in our dance marquee, and include as many display sides as we can fit on the site (and in the town!) – the dance marquee is for everyone, so experiences and novice dancers are all welcome!

We’ve improved the access to the dance tent, so this year all you’ll need to do is follow the flags up the hill to the second field to find the dance tent bursting with a fantastic variety of music and dance styles.

We have some of the countries top bands, including Trinculo, Glorystrokes and the Oyster Ceilidh Band going back to their roots to play a rare ceilidh for Shrewsbury.
We also have the global groves of Boka Halat and European visitors from Germany the Brassberries plus the highly acclaimed Boldwood, and local band Ceilidhography

We have top callers, Dave Hunt, Baz Parkes, Pete Reece to name a few, who will lead you through the dances, so even if you’ve never been to a ceilidh before you will be guided through the moves with ease.

Most dances will also feature a display from some impressive Morris and dance display sides. There is also a full programme of dance workshops which include an opportunity to try out different Morris styles, have a go at Belly dancing and write a dance for the Boka Halat ceilidh on Sunday evening.

We have changed the programme to get more dancing opportunities in and on Sunday you can dance to two bands in one evening.

The lighting and ambiance has been improved this year, which together with its own bar makes the dance tent a great place to be even if you just want to listen, but I doubt your feet will let you!

Schools’ Project Photos & Roundup

The festival’s school’s project report and photos are now available as part of the main festival website – there are around a hundred photos of the school workshops and final concert performance available here
http://www.shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk/schools-project/index.shtml

The 30 children who performed with the Demon Barber Roadshow have all being invited to the festival, and the Demon Barber Roadshow are playing on both Sunday and Monday of the festival – Sunday is their ‘normal’ roadshow, and Monday afternoon sees them incorporating some of the work in school into their performance.

Full details of the performance times/venues are listed in the programme, and the school project continues in 2009 with Scottish Traditions.

T-Shirt #2 - The River

The second t-shirt is the ‘river’ shirt, a design that features a simple front design and a representation of the River Severn as it loops around Shrewsbury on the back; the names of all the artists performing at the festival represent the land around the river.






We have these shirts in two colours, ‘Olive’ and ‘Denim’ and they both feature the same two colour screen print on front and back. These are standard unisex fit shirts (no ladies fit on this design)

.....to save anyone looking, the festival site is just about where the Orchestra (of Ukulele Orchestra of GB) is written on the shirt!


click on each image for a more detailed view

Beer and bars

The bars and beers are (obviously) an important part of the festival, and this year the quality of the bars and the range available is going to be even better than ever…..we have a confirmed list of the beers that are going to be available (listed below), PLUS we will have a unrivalled range of ciders too!

Timothy Taylors Landlord, Best bitter
Enville Breweries Simpkiss Bitter, Enville Ale, Ginger Beer, Enville LPA
Ma Pardoes (Old swan brewery) Entire bitter, Dark Swan, Original
Hobsons Brewery Best bitter, Town Crier, Mild Ale, Pale Ale
3 Tunns Brewery XXX, Solstice, Best Bitter
Woods Quaff, Shropshire Lad, Shropshire Lass
Bridgnorth Brewing Company Apley Ale, Northgate Gold, Old Mo
Holdens Special, Golden Glow

Keeping it Local!

Here at Shrewsbury Folk Festival we love the town that hosts us every year and are always extremely grateful for the support we get from our local community.
We are determined to be as local as we can at the festival and where possible we use Shropshire companies - from our web masters to our loo provider!

We want to support as many local businesses as possible to pay back into the county and community that supports us - and it helps reduce our carbon footprint.
For the first time this year we have Shropshire's BoxFresh Organics on board as sponsors of our village stage. BoxFresh - whose staff are all keen folkies too - will be providing a onsite shop where people can buy organic fruit, veg, eggs, bacon, sausages, bread, cheese, butter, milk, tea, coffee and sugar and support a local business. They are also kindly giving our artists organic fruit to munch on.

BoxFresh are also planning festival boxes which campers can order in advance and pick up onsite through
www.boxfreshorganics.co.uk

Other local businesses involved in the festival include - The Cider House from Wootton near Bridgnorth which run the bars; Space Mobiles (toilets) from Much Wenlock; SP Holding from Telford (a sponsor and drainage services); BPD Print Solutions from Sutton Maddock (printing); Modern Fire Extinguisher Services from Atcham (hazard a guess what they do!); Pink Skips from Telford; Purple Hotel in Shrewsbury which puts up artists; Paul and Sabine at Virtual Shropshire (Much Wenlock) who do our website, filming and photography and Face Interactive from Ironbridge which designs our newsletters, adverts and flyers.

Our local paper the Shropshire Star has also sponsored the wristbands everyone will be wearing this year. The paper is always hugely supportive with its positive coverage throughout the year, as is BBC Radio Shropshire, which will be driving its Big Red Bus to the showground and offering free workshops on board!

We also run a free shuttle bus into Shrewsbury town centre on Saturday and Sunday as well have having music sessions and dancers perform in the town centre and local pubs.