Over 27,000 viewers watch Shrewsbury Folk Festival online
Organisers of this year's Shrewsbury Folk Festival are celebrating after it was watched by more than 27,000 people around the world.
The event which is held each August bank holiday weekend was watched by 27,104 viewers in 49 countries across five continents.
More than 22,000 from viewers in the UK tuned in, and over 3,000 from the USA viewing the webcasts that were shown live during the festival and then repeated in the week after the event, which ran from 24-27 August.
Other countries where the online festival was a hit include New Zealand, Australia, France, Spain, Japan and Brazil.
Those viewing watched live and repeated sets from artists including Show of Hands, Karine Polwart and Kate Rusby.
This number of online viewers for this year's festival beats the 2011 figure of 14,000.
The average viewer spent between 33 and 137 minutes watching the festival footage with more than 1,500 people messaging into the free service.
The peak number of people online at one time was 1,209 during the live Sunday night performance of Richard Thompson.
The technical team behind the webcast is Charles and Heather Denscombe of Shrewsbury based MicroVideo along with IT specialist Paul Ebrey.
Shrewsbury Folk Festival Director Alan Surtees said: "The popularity of the webcast has been growing year on year but this year, the number of people watching has taken us all by surprise.
"The webcast is a brilliant advert for the festival and encourages people to buy tickets and therefore brings a valuable boost to the economy of Shrewsbury.
"And if you count the number of 'virtual' festivalgoers we have, Shrewsbury must be the largest folk festival in the country."
Mr Surtees praised the team behind the broadcasts, citing their tireless efforts to provide a quality service.
"Shrewsbury was the first ever folk festival to provide this service for free and it's all down to Charles, Heather and Paul and their vision and hard work."
Mr Denscombe said: "We have a dedicated team of volunteers who help us make this all possible. We're delighted that Shrewsbury Folk Festival is becoming an international success and for our part in that."
