News updates...
January 2012...
We are very excited by our
new look website... bright and cheerful, which reflects
what we hope to achieve with our festival this year! If
you experience any difficulties please let Bex know, but
bear in mind this website is all done on a shoestring with
limited skills so there may be flaws that she cannot fix -
such as the lack of knowledge of how to make it ideal for
mobile or ipad viewing - if you have such skills and would
like to donate your time we would love to hear from you :)
With the planning gearing up a few notches, we are very excited by our growing line up which now includes the fantastic talented Carrivick Sisters, and a welcome return by Dyer:Cummings who will be opening the festival with a ceilidh on our first night... no excuses, as soon as your camping pitches are set up you had best head into the school hall which will be in use for the first time for this years festival ready to dance the night away!
Speaking of camping - we have worked extremely hard this year to try and simplify the booking process for camping by creating an online shopping cart through which you can let us know how many would like to come and for how many nights - then you can choose to pre-order breakfasts, festival tops, and programmes.... none of this would have happened had it not been for the greatly appreciated assistance from a lovely chap called Graham who put in a lot of hours to give us workable java and html coding - so a massive vote of thanks goes to Graham for all his help. It is now time to get booking up your camping pitches so do visit the camping page and follow the instructions there.
With the planning gearing up a few notches, we are very excited by our growing line up which now includes the fantastic talented Carrivick Sisters, and a welcome return by Dyer:Cummings who will be opening the festival with a ceilidh on our first night... no excuses, as soon as your camping pitches are set up you had best head into the school hall which will be in use for the first time for this years festival ready to dance the night away!
Speaking of camping - we have worked extremely hard this year to try and simplify the booking process for camping by creating an online shopping cart through which you can let us know how many would like to come and for how many nights - then you can choose to pre-order breakfasts, festival tops, and programmes.... none of this would have happened had it not been for the greatly appreciated assistance from a lovely chap called Graham who put in a lot of hours to give us workable java and html coding - so a massive vote of thanks goes to Graham for all his help. It is now time to get booking up your camping pitches so do visit the camping page and follow the instructions there.
November 2011...
Sponsorship excitement!
We are delighted to announce that Halsawy Manor -
The National Centre for The Folk Arts - will be providing
sponsorship for this year. They have very kindly offered
to help out with our programme design and printing (yay,
no more wearing Bex' printer out!). Have a look at
their website to find
out more about this important national resource and their
activities.
Saturday Night - We have now booked 'Fable of The Bees'
a top folk/rock band headed up by Paul James of
Blowzabella fame. Time to get your dancing shoes dusted
off and ready for action!
4 Feb 2011...
We are gearing up for this years festival, and to that end have just added our downloadable campsite booking form! Check out the Camping page for your copy.We are also now taking pre-orders for festival garments, which this year will include T-shirts (Ladies, Gents, and Childrens sizes - yes, the ladies can have a more fitted T-shirt this year! Yay!), Sweatshirts (just in case it gets chilly, and Hoodies for the trendy folks (both of these in Ladies, Gents and Childrens sizes). Anyone pre-ordering any garments will get a fantastic 10% discount on the price they will be on sale at the festival for. You can pre-order your garments when booking camping, or, if you do not wish to camp, but would like to pre-order anyway, please email me and I will email you a form.
We are really excited with our line up for this year - which will include the fantastic band, Seize the Day, who have some fantastic material based on what is happening in the world here and now, fantastic songs, and music - really looking forward to seeing them in the Town Hall! Many more performers have also been booked, some returning from last year - you can find all the information you need on the Performers page
We look forward to welcoming you to the festival at the end of May :)
9 July 2010...
It has been decided to keep to the Whitsun weekend for 2011, so put the dates in your diaries NOW! May 27th to May 30th 2011.
The Festival will remain FREE with modest prices for camping... keep an eye out for a new shop page which will be added soon, along with a major update that will include the 2010 photo gallery and a number of other changes... The shop page will enable early booking of campsite pitches, as well as selling both our eye-catching, head-turning T-shirts and CD's of all the DFF2010 photographs as taken by our resident photographer Vikki Nuttall.
Post Festival Ramblings 2010...
That was one fantastic weekend! The sun wasnt quite as kind as last year, but we had enough good weather that the dancers didnt get soaked, and the campers didnt get stuck in the mud!I personally have had some wonderful feedback from those who came - both during the festival, and on email since.
Geoff Lakeman, with the Unstrung Heroes was superb, the pub was packed for his concert... all other performers, including Ian Idris, Ross Grant and The Whalers were well received too by all accounts.
All the workshops were well attended, and thoroughly enjoyed... Phil de la Haye did 3 fantastic singing workshops and if you check out her information on the artists page you will find the first edited song from her last workshop...
The bagpipers managed to make plenty of noise during the weekend too, with lots of people trying them for the first time, and others who were able to play a tune or more!
Our Ceilidh in the Town Hall was the best yet, with lots of willing dancers and Slainte Va entertaining us with a variety of ceilidh dances and great songs, with extra entertainment in the break from Crokodile Tears.
Sessions continued all over town into the wee small hours most nights, sadly due to small children and extreme exhaustion I was only able to sample a small bit of the sessions. Thanks to Alan Whitbread and the Polden Ridge Mountain Boys who played all over town during the weekend.
And Morris, Earlsdon once again showed off their energy with some fantastic dancing, while Rag Morris added lots of colour to the festival to say the least!
Huge thanks are due to all who came, performers, dancers and all, because without you the festival wouldnt have been anywhere near as great, friendly and vibrant as it was! We are incredibly grateful to all who supported the festival by putting their coppers in the collecting tins; or buying raffle tickets, badges and T-shirts, we have a healthy budget to enable us to start planning the next festival!
The other thanks has to go to the town of Dulverton, to all the businesses who supported the festival in so many ways, without them we could not have put on the festival - or kept it free!
I am sure that there must be others who have not been thanked by name on this page who really should be, so a huge thanks to you all:).
We have a small number of festival T-shirts left which are on offer with a Paypal button below... if there is enough interest for us to order an extra batch we will do this, so if you dont see the size you want please drop me an email saying what size you would like.
We must now turn our attention to working out the details for next year's festival to make that every bit as good, and hopefully better...
Keep an eye out for any updates that may be added on here in due course, along with the photos that Vikki took, and more sound files of the events that I managed to record!
Bex
