Jacksonville-Americana

A BIG THANK YOU TO YOU ALL FOR SUPPORTING THIS YEAR'S AMERICANA

The mixed weather during the lead up to the opening day didn't look too promising at all for the on-coming weekend. However as you all know it turned out okay on the last two days.

With record advance bookings we were very concerned that the weather might spoil our weekend of great cars and cool american music.
The festival is very reliant on having reasonable weather and over the years we have been blessed with mostly warm and dry weekends. The last couple of years or so the climate has been changing with our summers getting later and shorter, how do we address this to ensure the enjoyment that the festival is so well known for? I did say on the main stage that next year's will be under cover, but, I have now been voted against by my family, friends and traders....They all reckon that if I put the main stage arena under cover it will lose most of its magic, it will not give the people the freedom to walk around or up to the stage to take photos etc... Plus the very fact that if the sun shines it will be too hot (and clammy) inside a marquee, a point that I personally agree with. I want to do what's best for everybody so please either leave a message on the guest book on here or the main site, your views are very important to us..

As for this year's mega-fest somebody upstairs was certainly looking after us on saturday and sunday weatherwise....Sunday was amazing and the display of cars, bikes, trucks etc was the best I have seen for many years, take a look at the impressive arial pics they tell the whole story on how good it was for everybody...

All our artists showed how good they are the American 'legends' (Asleep At The Wheel Rosie Flores Ray Campi Jack Earls Robert Gordon Jay Chevalier Gail Davies, along with Rip Masters and the superb James Intveld pulled the biggest number of people on both stages alongside The Manfreds & THE DARTS (what a tremendous finish on the sunday)...The top class brit bands were mostly exceptional and we will be inviting them back, maybe not next year, but probably for our 30th anniversary in July 2010.

The sheer variety of music was perhaps the best we have ever booked, the addition of the daily record hop with 'Wildcat Pete' 'Screaming Brian' 'Rocking Lee' & 'Wobby Dave' was well received by all the rocking crowd.. There'll be more of that next year in the Lady Eastwood Pavilion along with the ever popular jive classes, which will be shared with the 'Jolly Jivers' and 'Kav Kavanah'.....

Congratulations to the forty recipients of our prestigious auto & bike awards please make sure we have your full names and adresses so we can send you a pair of complimentary weekend passes for 2009.

Special thanks to the AAC-UK AACNW AACI CCOCUK BCC NEACC MOCGB
GYAAC NEACC NSRA NASC BTR AAEC NORTHERN DEVILS PT CRUISERS OC.
MMMA HOG UK HDRC GWOCGB ARVE RVOC THE INDEPENDANTS

NB.
PLEASE REMBER THAT AS LONG AS YOU ARRIVE IN OR ON AN AMERICAN VEHICLE YOU WILL QUALIFY FOR A GOOD DISCOUNT OVER THE REGULAR WEEKEND ADVANCE BOOKING FEE. THE MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY PER VEHICLE FOR OUR DISCOUNT IS NOW TWO ADULTS PER VEHICLE (CHILDREN UNDER 16 GO FREE).

Next year's booking form will be uploaded onto the websites soon...