Since
the festival in July I have been struggling with thoughts on the
future of the festival. Last years unexpected poor attendance
mostly due to the terrible summer combined with funding problems
has left the Festival with a very low reserve. Then the collapse
of Northern Rock put the possibility of further funding into jeopardy.
The
festival has been running for 18 years and every year becomes
more costly to stage, in the beginning it was easy for volunteers
to put in their time for free but the sheer amount of work involved
just in the physical setting up of festival with the size it has
become is more than one can ask of volunteers and has to be paid
for.
The
festival has had good funding over the past 3 years enabling us
to employ more help, pay musicians better, commission new works
and bring over musicians over from the continent.
But now a 3 year contract from Cumbria Vision has finished There
is some disappointment on my part that after 18 years the Arts
Council have never offered core funding to the festival and money
from them is a lottery. These uncertainties make running the festival
at the same level look increasingly difficult without a great
deal of work being done to acquire a new funding base.
Quite
frankly I have done this sort of funding application work for
18 years now and have never enjoyed doing it but have always seen
it as a necessary evil. Since the festival this year I have not
had the energy or motivation to start another round of searching
for funds. So it is now nearly Christmas and I have come to the
decision not to run an Appleby 2008 and spend the year trying
to work out where we go from here.
I
know that this will be a great disappointment to many people not
least the Friends of Appleby who have supported the festival so
well over the years.
A
great thank you to you all, I have enjoyed meeting many of you
over the years and listening to some of the best live music there
is today with you. Lets hope we can sort something out fo
Neil Ferber Festival Organiser009
To
see some pics of 2007 click Here
