Awesome week. I had an absolute blast, at academy and through the festival. So many great sets, and I mostly appreciated the increased diversity of the music (couldn’t handle the piano and drums accompanying scottish fiddling). For me the highlights were the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Bela and friends, and the Casey-Chris fiddle tune medley in the wildflower pavilion.
One minor disappointment, though, was the fact that there seemed to be a lot less jamming going on in the on-site camping area. Whereas in years past there would be a dozen fun public jams going on each evening, this year I didn’t usually find more than half that. A new friend I made this year also complained about this, and offered an interesting hypothesis: It is because on-site camping tickets have moved to the lottery system. Before the lottery, the people who cared the most about on-site camping (who, according to this hypothesis, are more likely to be pickers) would work the phones on the morning that tickets went on sale and be sure to be there. Now, it’s more likely that the less die-hard (i.e., non-pickers) are camped on-site.
Seems to make sense, doesn’t it?
Anyway, I still picked until 5AM most evenings (sorry if I kept you up!) and had a real blast. Already counting down the days until next year…