The Cropredy set was Great. He also did the first Swarbaid

Not a surprise he had been ill for several years, but a sad loss.

In the 90's Alias Ron Kavana were just about the most exciting act on the folk club scene. Almost joined the Pogues on more than one occasion apparently.

That slightly underplays it, to be fair, the prize is worth about £2k  Everyone that buys a ticket (or has already bought a ticket) is entered.

Sorry if noted elsewhere, but I note from the mailing list,  that a raffle has been initiated to try to boost ticket sales, presumably.

Don’t worry, it’s not a box of hankies, a knitted loo roll cover and some After Eights…it's some festival tickets for some other events via Costa Music Festivals.

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.