Simon Says....

[Shane (Skirky)]

Let’s all donate a tenner each to a just giving page to get a top act booked if it saves the future of the festival
I understand the act may not please everyone but a £10 donation and you get a patch/badge showing you helped support the festival.
If I had to pay a tenner to help buy an act and help the festival sell out I wouldn’t hesitate…,
Is that feasible or bonkers?

As evidenced elsewhere, Patreon might seem like the way forward. A regular monthly fee for access to exclusive content, unreleased recordings (if any 🤔😁) and priority booking.

[mickf]

I first went to Cropredy in 1984, but over the next two decades I only attended sporadically, due to family, finances and, you know, life! Since my kids grew up and especially since my retirement, I've been able to go more often. However, as has been mentioned already, old age brings with it other issues. For instance, I've given up regular camping, as it's literally, a pain! In the last few years I tried hiring a camper van at ridiculous expense and (last year) gone glamping at ridiculous expense. I'm glamping again this year, but I don't know if that is sustainable in the long term. The line up doesn't really inspire me and, as others have said, if it wasn't Cropredy, I'm not sure I would have bothered.

I'm not a huge prog fan, but can take it in small doses. Unfortunately some pretty large doses appear to be on the menu. Trevor Horn for the third time in a few years isn't really an attraction to me. Ironically, my daughter who is coming with me for the first time since 1984 (when she was 6 months old ) is looking forward to hearing his 'greatest hits' act. She is also a Fairport fan, having been with me to see them on many occasions on Wintours etc, so it will be interesting to see what she thinks of the festival as a whole. Time marches on and, I suppose, the inevitable happens.

I can't see Fairport doing much to change the current state of affairs, and if they did, maybe it's too late for it to make much of a difference anyway. Still, it's a bit of un, isn't it? No, seriously, isn't it?!

[Dubai Danny]

Given the cost of living crisis, I honestly think that the lineup is a huge part of it.

Cropredy is *not* a cheap 3 days, and if we're going to risk spending what's going to be the thick end of £700 for two of us (after food, drink, travel costs and sundries) potentially being rained on in a muddy field before trudging back to a tent, we need to be confident we're going to enjoy a fair chunk of the acts.

Cropredy is simply too expensive for us to go in the primary hope of discovering something new.

I know that in years gone by, grumbles about the lineup have always been met with the usual responses of "We don't care about the music, we're going because it's Cropredy", but as has been said, the number of people with that attitude will have been diminishing every year through unavoidable natural causes, and so there needs to be a counterbalance.

Since the weather is just pot luck, the lineup is the only leverage the organisers have with those of the ticket-buying public who aren't nostalgically wedded to the twin concepts of FC and Cropredy - which, let's be honest, is most of them.

We haven't been for 17 years, and we've only been 4 times in total starting in 2002. Even back then, it was noticeable that the FC setlists were mostly comprised of the stuff we'd seen on the Wintours and the years of the mega-sets full of back-catalogue surprises were over.

Despite the headline of "it's the lineup, dummy!" I don't really know if there's an answer, and to be frank, I would imagine that pretty much everything depends on how well this year turns out.