Broadstairs next year instead of Sidmouth?
Comment on Broadstairs Folk Festival - from a BBC
Internet discussion forum (Radio 2, Folk and Acoustic)
Ah, Broadstairs. I was there for just a day
last August. It's a much more spectacular seaside town than Sidmouth, has all the venues
close together and has much better ice cream. Give it a go...
Broadstairs Folk Week is funded in part by the Arts Council. It was registered as a charity in 1988 - you can view all the details by entering its charity number (298824) into the charity commission database. Gross income/expenditure is around £200,000 pa - a quarter of that required to run Sidmouth yet it attracted apparently 150,000 people in 2004 - many of whom must have been casual onlookers. However, there is no large international dimension to the week.
Their website lists funders and sponsors. These include Asda - maybe Waitrose and Somerfield should get in on the act in a big way for Sidmouth? Try this.
"We need your help so that Broadstairs Folk Week can continue as it is - one of the few remaining successful festivals held in a town as opposed to in an enclosed green field site. Please support us."
The town seems proud be be a part of the folk scene and is hosting one of the events to support "Swarbaid" on 11 Feb 2005. More here. In Sidmouth, February will probably be glum, grey and depressed.
Broadstairs has a population almost twice that of Sidmouth but the two towns seem broadly comparable, each boasting of its 'quintessentially English seaside character" and of a centre that has "remained largely unchanged for generations". There are many websites giving a range of pictures but a search of Google for "population of Broadstairs" produced only one result - an interesting article on mathematics......