Economic regeneration benefits flow from committed social entrepreneurs at the Wessex Folk Festival 2008

Community events are a great way to achieve regeneration and improve an area's economic activity and no better example can be found than the Wessex Folk Festival at Weymouth, Dorset which is a model West Country rural areas in need of economic and community regeneration like West Somerset and Exmoor would do well to emulate.

The Wessex folk festival is a splendid example of how community action with a clear entrepreneurial leadership, even without the profit incentive, can bring great economic benefits.

In West Somerset we have a folk festival held in carhampton run voluntarily by some hard working local supporters but the Wessex Folk Festival is of a different order of magnitude and therefore brings correspondingly greater benefits.

I attended the Wessex Folk Festival last year and I'm glad to see that it is again being staged between the 6th - 8th June 2008 in Weymouth, Dorset.

Weymouth is a nice little town. It has a great beach, a pleasant harbour and an area called Hope Square with a wonderfully continental ambiance on a sunny day. Last year, the sun shined on the Wessex Folk Festival and Hope Square and beyond was teeming with people enjoying themselves and listening to the almost nonstop free music held on the public stage.

Several pubs were also participating in the festival and were packed with amateur musicians and singers making music for themselves and for local people and tourists who were there to eat, drink and enjoy the free musical entertainment.

Many other venues hosted more formal artist performances and were also very successful with activities extending as far as Portland.

Folk festivals attract devotees from all around the country, typically in camper vans, caravans and tents but with many also using local hotels and B & Bs. Without doubt the surrounding caravan and camping sites, hotels, bed and breakfast businesses and guesthouses also benefited from the extra visitors as a result of the Wessex Folk Festival.

The Wessex Folk Festival was an event of which any commercial organisation would have been proud. Yet it was run by a small group of dedicated volunteers and largely paid for out of fund-raising. It is remarkable that there are still people in this very commercial world who are willing to take on such responsibility and such amounts of hard work to achieve, often without thanks, something of great public worth.

Indeed, in 2007 at the end of the festival, I attended a survivors folk session at the Sailors Return pub, Weymouth and the good people on the committee were already collecting for the 2008 Wessex Folk Festival. Frankly, I consider such dedication deserves the highest public recognition.

In stark contrast to the social entrepreneurs of Weymouth, who put so much work into the Wessex Folk Festival and contribute so much to the economic well-being of their area, we see huge amounts of money spent on capital projects where the additional revenues into local small businesses are practically insignificant.

I am looking forward to visiting the Wessex Folk Festival this year both because I know I will have a great time being part of a wonderful community, listening to great folk music and participating in some great folk music sessions in the pubs but also because I will be supporting a wonderful enterprise run charitably by some truly courageous people.

Bye for now

Rob Hopcott

Your comments are welcomed below about how economic and social regeneration in West Somerset, Dorset, Weymouth or any other area can be gained from festivals and other public events.