Some time ago, our friend Sue Timmins suggested on Facebook that there might be some people out there willing to sponsor our little festival in some way, and the feedback suggested she is correct. We are very humbled and grateful to those lovely people for their incredible support. Many people have suggested that they would be more than happy simply to pay more for their tickets. That is one way to go, but of course most people would not want to, and the last thing we want is to overprice and put off potential customers. So this proposal is, in some ways, a chance for those that want to, to pay more for a ticket. We have been thinking for a long time how to present this; we are not a charity, and we are not asking for handouts, but sponsorship is always helpful. We have never had a real sponsor in a commercial sense, so perhaps a collective fan’s sponsorship is the answer, in order to help us continue to improve things. Needless to say, all costs have risen this year, some very considerably, so any and all help is appreciated. We still don’t know what to offer our Sponsors/Patrons in return – although many have said they want nothing in return. We would, of course, like to mention and to thank any sponsors both in the festival programme and on the website, and we will try to come up with other ways to reward sponsors in some small way. Each sponsor, regardless of amount pledged, will receive a unique Patron t-shirt, with all patron names printed on the back, to be collected at the festival, or posted if you cannot attend - assuming you want one, of course! Each sponsorship "unit" will be put into a (virtual!) hat, the winner selected at random and given the chance to name a stage… within reason. Obviously we won’t be having a Donald Trump stage, no matter how much is pledged! Every sponsorship ‘unit’ will be a chance to win this reward. Because we can’t think of another way of doing this, we are ‘selling’ a Patronage pledge for £30 on the merch website. 1 ‘purchase’ is 1 unit of patronage/sponsorship. Millionaires are more than welcome to buy 1,000 units… but we won’t hold our breath!