Chaps, I’m kicking around an idea for a Leek Blues Festival sometime in October

This message appeared on my face-book page early last year, I knew very little about Blues music and had only photographed 1/2 a dozen gigs, and was now being asked to help arrange Leeks first Blues Festival, along with a group of artists and music fans.  Now 18 months later I’m sitting here recovering from the 2nd Festival, a monster 5 days over 18 venues with 50 bands, my personal score is 22 bands photographed and over 2000 shots taken 1 16 hour day and 4 18 hour days, and I’m knackered.

I’m also now a big fan of Blues music, in awe of all the performers I’ve seen over the past few days, extremely proud to have been a small part of the group that organized the event and even prouder of my home town for supporting the whole thing in such a big way.

The whole festival has taken months to organise, 100’s of man (and woman) hours making sure that both bands and venues had all the support they needed, raising funds and spending them wisely, producing marketing material from poster, maps and flyers to beer mats, badges and plectrums, and all this work was done for free, normally after a hard day doing their proper jobs.

And now its all over with just the memories, hangovers and pictures to show for it. But what great memories, what great pictures and what great hangovers we have have got. I’m going to put my feet up for a few days and then finish off the last of the pictures from Saturday night and Sunday. Then we can start to do it all again if your up for it.