TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

The poll has closed, the results are in and here are the top 7 (Who got over 40% of the winners vote) :

Richard Thompson	604
Fairport Convention	496
The Waterboys	384
Martin Barree Band	348
Daphne's Flight	336
Wilson & Wakeman	288
Frank Turner	256

Home teams top the charts again.

Well, does that seem fair?

It all depends on what you mean by "fair". The result is what it is - and fairly inevitable at that.

I’d do the vote without fairport
Many forumites would vote for them just for turning up and I’m sure some only turn up for one day to see them play and have no idea who any of the other acts are....
I’m surprised there isn’t a similar vote for the winter tour ::)

I am delighted that my hero, the maestro himself, has bagged so many votes. If I recall correctly, Fairport and RT don’t always bag the top spot.

Anyway. This year’s sets were superb from both, so I believe this IS fair. All the others in that list were brilliant, too ( I didn’t see Frank Turner myself).

There are plenty in the 30-50 bracket (and much younger) who love Fairport and RT, especially those brought up on Cropredy Festival itself.

I know it’s not supposed to be a folk festival, but actually it’s the new, young (and not so new, not so young) folk acts who make it for me personally...I’d prefer more of those than,say, the eighties stuff but I see what Wandering Steve is saying.

Maybe it SHOULD be a folk festival and define its theme a bit more. Folk festivals do seem to be popular, Shrewbury seemed super from the bits I tuned into. End of random ramblings.

Quite a decent vote for Frank, considering he must have had the lowest crowd of the weekend.

Yes I did go to bed half way through.

Edit: At this point, a different discussion emerged, which has been spun off into its own thread...

We seem to have moved a long way away from comments on the Top Turn Vote!

Some people may vote for FC because it's their festival.  Others in their comments say they tend not to vote for FC for the same reason.  The results seemed fair to me on the whole, though I didn't think RT was quite as good this year as 2 years ago, and would have put him below Fairport.

I think the result actually says a lot about Talkawhile rather than the festival itself. I wasn't there so I can't judge but there were certainly plenty of years when the Fairport family did not top the poll. Those however were when TAW was a far more dynamic, lively place than it is now with constant interaction between a large core of members day in day out.

The constituency of TAW has undoubtedly shrunk and activity on the threads is a fraction of what it once was. I suspect therefore that most of us that remain faithful to TAW also remain faithful to Fairport. What got us to Cropredy and what brought us to TAW in the first place was Fairport and for many of this audience (which is only a small part of the Cropredy audience) Fairport remain the raison d'etre for both institutions.

So the poll results are probably distorted by TAW's current demographic and may not be representative of festival goers as a whole.

A good point, well made.

The Poll is directed at TAWfolk, thus the results are not distorted, but representative.

Yes they are representative of TAW folk but TAW folk or at least active TAW folk are a smaller and possibly narrower demographic than they once were.

How do you expect us to "fix" that?

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

Glad this thread is back on track. They do seem to be getting hijacked by ‘who should be appearing at Cropredy’ type themes.

Shame Tidelines didn’t feature in the top few, they were fabulous. But, as stated earlier, I am happy with the result  :)

How many of the "newer" attendees (I'm one - this was only my third year) even know that TAW exists?

Perhaps some publicity for TAW (On the fence where all the "jokes" are? Sent out with the tickets? In the programme?) would re-enegise the forum?

Also, can we have a weather weighting for the votes next year? I think that anybody who stayed through Frank Turner's - excellent - set this year should get double or triple votes for it  :)

From what I hear and see, many people use the facebook group now, instead.

Shame, because I for one love Talkawhile and I am possibly not the only one who prefers not to go down the Facebook route at present.

The vote is a valid representation of TAWers’ views so it is a valid poll.

Can I suggest the bloke who kicks off the Saturday for this?

Talkawhile did get mentions in the programmes when I first started,for quite a few years..haven't noticed it recently, though.

That might (or might not) have something to do with aforementioned Saturday lunchtime handkerchief waving bloke...?

Funny you should say that, it crossed my mind, too...I do enjoy him but he dislikes TAWers who have other opinions....does he have that much influence?

It's nothing to do with Dickie Digance, but has everything to do with Fairport having a more professional setup post 2004.

I'm very happy with the way TAW fits in alongside Facebook Fairporters, it's two entirely different setups, both with much the same aim.

Ah is that when it stopped being mentioned...was that the year of all the changes, I can’t remember...?
Yes, I do read the facebook page just I am not on Facebook myself. Not suggesting everyone should just do one or the other when I mentioned it earlier, just that quite a few probably prefer that as it’s commonly used. I hope TAW keeps going anyhow!  :)

I don't. I am not sure why you are taking this amiss Andy. I wasn't criticising. It was merely an observation that TAW has reverted to a much smaller community now and the Fairport centric nature of that community may explain the poll results (which were more varied when there were more voices here).

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 you are a bad man David

Agree...I only ever use Facebook very very occasionally and merely to find out what’s going on at a particular event. I may be in the minority but I regard Facebook as highly dangerous and feel much safer using TAW than any other forum. Unfortunately most people I meet at Cropredy have never heard of TAW.

Anyway back on topic, I tend to not give votes to Fairport as it’s their festival but I like to rank the acts I see which don’t play there every year. Glad to see that votes went to a wide variety of performers this year. I voted mainly for the Waterboys, Daphne’s Flight, Wilson & Wakeman and Frank Turner perhaps demonstrating my own varied tastes