[Gayle]

Oh, ok, I'll give you a straight answer if I must!

Each year the Mela committee has to apply for funding (usually lottery or Arts Council which is lottery as well - so not really public purse). Each year we apply for the funding and then we only spend the amount we're allocated. A large chunk of that over the last three years has been for infrastructure with the stage hire.

These lottery organisations don't like wasting money and they see hiring the stage not as a waste as such but they'd prefer it if the money could be going back into the community to pay for the programming. But for the last three years we've had to use at least £3k out of the funding for the stage. I can't see them allowing this to continue. Also, if you want to get deeper into it, the Olympics have taken a huge amount of lottery funding so there will be smaller amounts of money to go around over the next few years.

What you always forget is that this money goes back into the local community - the stage hire company is local so it helps to support their business, the local bands get paid a small fee and get to showcase their acts, local caterers have the opportunity to have stalls, local community groups get stands to explain about their services.

Just because you don't like it, and you clearly don't, doesn't mean that other people don't like it - we get in the region of 5,000 people coming to these festivals.