Hey, Rex, thanks for the comments.

It’s worth noting that I don’t go to concerts, because I think they’re too darned expensive. I won’t pay much more than the price of a CD to go to a concert. Yes, compared to mainstream concerts, the Festival is a great value… but it’s a poor comparison in my case. Events are few and far between that can entice me with a $30+ gate fee. The last concert I went to cost me $5 a seat.

That I’m planning to go to the Festival, despite a $35 gate fee, says a lot about what I expect to get out of it. (I expect that it will have changed my mind about the value… something per-minute costs of entertainment will never do.)

Thanks again for your comments, Rex. I understand that you’re intimately involved with the Festival and that you obviously see it as a valuable cause, and I am more or less criticizing some aspect of it without actually having experienced it. The gate fees are simply higher than I expected, and I gave my first impression of that.

I’ll be sure to give a report on my experience when it’s over.

Consider this, if you come to Walnut Valley on Saturday, your $35 will get you over 57 hours of music on the main stages, this doesn’t include the nearly around the clock campground jam sessions. Compare the Walnut Valley Ticket price with an up coming Wichita concert in late September featuring a well known country artist. For your Walnut Valley ticket you will pay slightly over 1 cent per minute for the music, compared to a $30 concert ticket (the cheapest seats available by the way) if the concert runs 2 hours, you will pay about 25 cents per minute. While Walnut Valley is not the largest music festival in the world, it does draw music fans from around the world, 33 different foreign plus all 50 states, the average attendance is between 15,000 and 17,000.
By the way, you can also still get the $30 ticket through September 11th at 5:00 pm. by coming to the festival office at 918 Main in Winfield.

Rex Flottman
Walnut Valley Staff