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IWA National Festival 2009
Ratcliffe-on-Soar

It was with some trepidation that we approached the IWA 2009 National Waterways Festival, held this year at Ratcliffe-on-Soar. After the mud at St. Ives in 2007 and the terrible ground conditions at Autherley (2008) we hoped that the law of averages would come into play and bless us with a dry Bank Holiday weekend. And it did, either that or the organisers did a lot of praying. We arrived at the site with the displays on the Friday in order to set up and to be ready for the Saturday opening. Several of the team were already there waiting for us as they had booked into the Festival camp site earlier in the week. Although it was a bit windy (the end of a trans-Atlantic hurricane) the ground was nice and dry. It was probably the largest Festival site I have ever seen. All these sites tend to be a bit unique. This one was held in a large field alongside the River Soar in the shadow of the eight looming cooling towers of the power station. The weather was good to us all weekend with just a little bit of rain on Sunday afternoon – not enough to cause any problems. It was a very successful Festival.