Anybody make it to the festival this year. It's Sunday and once again due to baby constraints, I could'nt make it. Maybe next year. Post your reports if you made it so I can live vicariously through the web. The lineup looked great as usual and It was hard not to be there when it's only 45 minutes away and the weather was the best in years.

Layne, it's hard to hold a fiddle and and a baby at the same time, but it's time you looked into one of those baby back packs. The Folk Roots area was kickin. Short of a lousy ear infection or stuff like that you missed a window of opportunity. Kids are never so portable once they learn to walk.

It was a treat to have Penny Martin tell me about my newly acquired Martin accordion. No post-purchase regrets here.

While I was only there Saturday, it was great seeing friends from around the country. The festival was everything you could hope for and more.

Janet

The Festival was (as always) terrific. There was so much happening at the same time - much more than in the past! An advantage was that the individual stages were not as crowded. The disadvantage, however, was that it wasn't practical to see (and hear) everything. I tried, though, but I had to miss as much as I saw.

For what I attended, highlight were Joe Hall, Fiddle workshop with Mitch Reed and Anya Burgess, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Feufollet, Jo-el Sonnier, Paul Daigle, Balfa Toujours, Savoy Family Band, Lafayette Rhythm Devils, and seeing so many people that I knew.

I'm sure that what I did not see was as good as what I did.

Jack Bond

With so many stages, I guess they need more and more emcees to help Barry Ancelet. Who were some of the other announcers, and did they speak French?

This year, Barry chose not to introduce any of the bands on the Main Stage or Heritage Stage. He had young French Immersion students as well as young, French speaking musicians do all of the introductions. They were all done in French. He decided to step down and have younger people do the intros to show people that the language is still very much alive in the Lafayette area.

Actually, I heard Barry introduce a number of bands at the Festival stage. Maybe some of the kids got stage fright.

It was a great festival. I had a chance to catch up with Jr. Martin and I met Larry Miller (who was manning the Bon Cajun booth). I also got to meet Joe Hall (I'm a big fan of his but never had the chance to meet him).

Another highlight was seeing the Savoy Family Band perform (since the festival was honoring Marc and Ann Savoy). And the Pine Leaf Boys said they were using their festival performance as part of an upcoming live album; that's worth an "I was there when..." story once the album comes out.

Jude

It was a great one again this year. The weather was perfect, just too much to see(and hear) at one time! I found it odd that the local news didn't seem to cover it at all. A very important event to overlook for sure. I did notice a small crew traveling around with a camera and mic, but I did not get where they were from(info. please?) May have ran into some of you without even knowing it!lol