Judy
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CreetownTHIS IS POSTED ON BEHALF OF ANDREW WARD
For the past 13 years I have been one of the leading lights at Creetown Country Weekend, although the last 3 years my involvement has been limited, due to personal reasons. However Im back pretty much full-time now and as such I wanted to let folk know just whats going on and what we hope to achieve in the future.
I will begin by trying to explain what we think has gone wrong and how we hope to put it right.
The last 3/4 years we have been blighted by youngsters who come from out of town, they are attracted by the crowds, the event. They behalf pretty attrociously, and though there has never been any real major incident, they do cause upset. Unfortunately there has been little we could do to stop them coming, be it they dont come to the festival, they just to wander around the town, causing unpleasantness.
Then a couple of years ago there was a cock-up with the trilogy and there was a fallout, between the festival committee and westerners.
Finally we changed last years last day (sunday), to a non-country event, and though it was a major success, busiest day of the four days, it wasnt to the liking of country fans.
None of these things were ever done to upset or allienate our country and western friends. Some we couldnt control, some were done to help support the festivals finances (such events dont come cheap).
However thats in the past and what we want to do is to ask everyone to get behind us and help get Creetown Country Festival back on track.
We are starting by moving to a new venue, just 5 minutes walk out of the village. This will mean we have an enclosed site, with controlled access. Which will stop the numpty youths getting anywhere near. We are also talking to the police to try insure they dont even come to town in the first place. This I believe will put an end to this problem.
The new site is huge and as such we will be able to offer, on site camping with good facilities. It is so big that we will have two marquees this year. One will be solid, wall to wall Country Music, Thursday to Sunday. The other marquee, will havedifferent music, maybe a bit of Irish, a bit of Folk, Blues, a bit of line dancing and yes for those who are not Country Music devotees, maybe a tribute band night. The point is we have a lot of folk who want to come, they love to meet the westerners, they love the atmosphere,friendliness and fun the cowboys bring, but they are not that bothered about country music, thats not a crime, and in fairness, staging such an event needs these people as well. But not, as we realise at the expenseof our western family.
So this year we will have a country music/westerners dedicated marquee and area, and as such I hope we get a positive response. The financial climate will see the demise of some festivals this year, indeed it my understanding that some folded last year. We are determined it wont happen here. But we need your help and support, we want to know what bands you want to see, what events you'd like us to put on, what facilities you want. Its easy to shoot us down, yes weve made mistakes, the key is to show that you care and that by working together we can put on a festival that is second to none. Back where we were, great fun and great music.
So we want to hear from you, we want your ideas, thoughts. If Country music is to survive and prosper there has to be change, whilst at the same time staying true to the ideals we started with. We want to hear from stall-holders, westerners, country music devotees, people who have been, people who might think about visiting this year. So come on guys and gals, lets be positive, lets hear from you. Lets get this wagon rolling again.
Take care
Andrew
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