The Mill Hill Music Festival Day 4 - Rog's festival diary

Today is day four of the Festival. We have a real treat tonight. We have the amazing Stewart Curtis & K Groove with their amazing Klezmer show. Tickets are still available at Mill Hill wines and they can give you all the details etc. Stewart is an old friend of the festival, and an old friend of mine. He teaches Brass and woodwind at our studios. His band are amazing players and always a joy to work with. Anyone who has seen Stewart will know of his affable presentation and bad jokes. His CV as a musician is unsurpassed and includes working with Mari Wilson & the Wilsations.  Nik Kershaw, Tracey Ullman, Selina Jones, Germaine Stewart, Glen Matlock, Matt Bianco, Percy Sledge, Festival Klezmer Band, Orchestra Folia and Steely Dan. But his first love is Klezmer music and his show demostrates his encyclopedic knowledge of the genre.

For me, it will be a busy day. We have staging, lighting and a PA system to run, so it will be a very full on day. There is a lot of gear to be shifted and much of it is quite heavy, so I won't need to nip to the gym this week! I played five a side football last night, so getting up was not the easiest this morning, at 56 it invariably means a few aches and pains, but it was great to have a completely different challenge. 

The ticket sales are good this year and the free to enter events at The Adam and Eve have been very well attended. Both The Ron Lewis Partnership on Saturday and The Ron Russell band yesterday had the audience up and boogieing. The Adam and Eve have made us very welcome and their support is very much appreciated. The pub have already asked to get The Ron Lewis Partnership back in the Autumn, which sounds like a very good idea to me! Maybe they could do a joint bill with The Ron Russell band and we'd market it as "The Two Ronnies live in Mill Hill" (and I said Stewart Curtis told bad jokes). Pubs like The Adam and Eve are few and far between. At a time when so many are struggling, it is thriving and the reason is that it serves the Mill Hill community well. Their support of the festival is a great example. The pub has invested in a complete refurbishment of the garden recently and is dog and children friendly. It was lovely to see small children dancing to the Jazz yesterday (I'm not sure the doggies were quite so impressed!). 

The pattern of ticket sales is following that of previous years. We announce the line up in March/April and we sell about half the tickets in the period coming up to a month before the festival. In the final week there is a huge rush and we always get people turning up at the sold out gigs complaining that they can't get in. It is essential that people buy tickets early as we have all sorts of up front costs. I've spoken to many festival organisers and been involved with a few myself. Everyone says the same thing, people always tell you how much they love the events, but they buy the tickets last minute, which means sleepless nights worrying that costs will be covered and venues full. If everyone who wanted to attend an event bought their tickets as soon as possible, it would make the festivals run far more smoothly. Earlier in the year, I was involved with The London International Ska Festival and Sean who runs it tells the same story. So please buy your tickets early and support the people who put our festivals together. 

Anyway, must shoot. Got to do some stage building.