We are continuing to charge a £1 for the Festival's programme.
In these days of squeezed budgets, the advertising revenue our publisher earned has been insufficient for us to give you both the size of programme we thought you ought to have and to provide sufficient numbers to cope with the growth in attendance. This has meant festival goers have not been getting all the information they required, with those who came on Saturday often not getting a programme at all. We decided that this unsatisfactory situation could not continue. Hence, what we believe is very modest charge of £1 will be levied. Compare that with the cost of a programme for a rugby or football match at Edgeley Park or the price of programme at a concert or the theatre.
There is also the environmental consideration, as a considerable waste of recourses occurred. Why was this? With the programme being free; ever one took a copy, and then promptly discarded them on to the floor, sometimes completely unread. Others picked up a new copy on every visit to the Festival rather than re-using their programme.
The income will firstly be used to offset the cost of providing you with a bigger, better, brighter, glossier programme and to ensure that everybody who wants a programme can have one. Secondly, at least 25p from every sale will be donated to our Festival Charity, whose volunteers will be selling the programme. Any balance left over will then be used to assist our unpaid volunteers (we stopped calling them staff a long time back as a reflection of their unselfish dedication), without whom the Festival would not exist.
We help our volunteers, who give up their time generously, with the additional costs they incur with late night taxis (and for a few who come a distance - their accommodation). Remember that we have only had one entry price increase since we first moved to Edgeley Park. There are few, if any, CAMRA festivals across the UK which have lower prices for beer and cider.