I fought the law and it blew the budget for the composting toilets

What to blog about and what to leave out.

All the best stuff requires me to ask the wife, 'do you think I should/could blog about this?' Well as I have the feeling we're on a train that we can't get off, I might as well.

We are getting to know our big firm of solicitors pretty well. Now that our licence has finally landed on the doormat we are apparently treading on the toes of a fella who runs a North Yorkshire music venue with the word 'Shed' in it's title. If it's not one thing it's another. Said title is also trade marked, although most people's immediate reaction to the finer details is - 'you what?' We have been expecting a letter from his solicitors through the post for the last 3 weeks, perhaps he's thought better of it, most likely not. No doubt we'll see who runs out of money first. It's at times like these you need a wealthy father-in-law who is about to sell off a plot of land for a motorway service station on the new widened A1(M) near the A61 between Ripon and Thirsk (Northbound). Chance would be a fine thing.

I really wish I'd done law at school. If you put on your own festival you run into legal issues very very quickly. Heaven knows what we'll do when Tescos do a stocktake of their very handy home delivery boxes. Or when the police knock on the door after the 3 by 8 ft festival banner I hastily stapled to the Boroughbridge/Ripon roundabout fence blows away in high winds and sticks to the windscreen of a school bus etc etc..

Tickets are selling well though. We've sold 1/4 of what we need to sell to break even and we have some good press and marketing lined up. Best of these is a feature in the Sunday Times festival guide due out in May. It's going to be a David and Golith piece with us vs Vince Power. He sounds like a festival superhero, and perhaps is. His festival has Bob Dylan as it's headline this year and so it's all about an established 'festival god' and us, the festival rookies.

We are having some photos done tomorrow for this (Kate off to hairdressers in morning, I might have a shave.)

I have put our friend Chrissie in charge of 'festival madness', he is an ideal candidate. As he puts it, 'an honorary role with real value'. This is not to suggest that our event will be in any way out of control, but as I've said before, many of the things that are best about festivals are not those which are foreseen by the organisers (see my post about Kendall Calling and Helen Roddy.) Chris has taken on this post which much relish and in the process has brought me 8 doors. Madness, like I say.

See below our new advertising initiative which will no doubt lead to more trouble of one sort or another...