Global audience tunes into Shrewsbury Folk Festival’s webcast
A webcast of Shrewsbury's annual folk festival reached all corners of the globe with more than 37,000 views of the musical extravaganza.
The performances broadcast from the sell-out festival at the West Mid Showground over August Bank Holiday weekend, and repeated in the week afterwards, were seen 37,862 times – over 10,000 more than in 2013.
Viewers tuned in from 47 countries across five continents. People saw the footage in 687 towns and cities across Europe including 577 in the UK.
There were watchers in all 10 Canadian provinces and 37 of the 50 US states.
The webcast, believed to be one of the only broadcast live and free on the internet, is masterminded by Shrewsbury based Microvideo and local IT expert Paul Ebrey.
They broadcast the main stage footage live and for the first time this year, recorded performances from the second stage to show during downtime.
Interviews with musicians by BBC Radio Shropshire folk show presenter Genevieve Tudor were also broadcast to the viewers.
Festival director Alan Surtees said: “The webcast gets more popular every year and it’s a great way to promote folk and traditional music as well as Shrewsbury.
“The video produced by the Shrewsbury BID to promote the town was also shown so Shrewsbury was being promoted across the globe.
“Charles and Heather Denscombe who run Microvideo, along with Paul, and their team work incredibly hard to provide this service and we have to thank them for helping to put Shrewsbury and the festival on the international map."
