Festival's £3,000 grant boost   04/07/2006

Director of the festival Robin Symonds told the council that facilities in Ross were limited with St Mary’s Church, the largest venue, holding a maximum of 250 people with seating in varying levels of comfort and some with restricted viewing.

He added that because of this the prices the festival can charge for tickets are always less than for concerts in surrounding areas such as Wyastone.

To secure first class events with professional musicians, they can not even rely on selling out tickets to cover their costs.

For this reason they appealed to the town council to ask them to support their project again this year but increase their grant by £500.

The council has been campaigning for some time for organisers to take up the baton of using the town’s newly refurbished bandstand.

Ross Live! organisers have offered to take on responsibility of arranging a series of performances on Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the summer by brass bands using the bandstand. To do this they have asked for a further grant of £1,000 in order to promote four such concerts.

“We would seek sponsorship from businesses in order to increase the number of these concerts, which would, I feel sure do much to enhance the riverside as an attractive and welcoming place for both residents and visitors to Ross,” said Mr Symonds.

At last week’s Ross town council meeting Phil Cutter, Ross Mayor said: “They are looking for money and I think we should support them.”

Councillor Philip Hague said: I think we should come to an arrangement where they can use the bandstand but we shouldn’t give them money to use it.”

The town council agreed to pay the extra £1,000 on the understanding that Ross LIve! did all the work themselves to get the concerts going rather than town clerk Denise Mason working on administration.

Councillor Cutter presented Mr Symonds with a cheque for the full £3,000 they asked for last Thursday.

This year’s Ross Live! festival has been scheduled to start a week later than usual in August so as not to clash with the Hereford Three Choirs Festival and runs from August 12-19.