THE concert night at the North Wiltshire Festival on Saturday was a magical evening of entertainment and excitement.

How sad, then, that the rest of the three-day event did not live up to it.

It gives the Gazette no pleasure to report the dismal reaction to the festival and particularly the paltry amount of entertainment offered to those who came to Monkton Park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Traders, who had been lured to Chippenham with promises of 100,000 visitors were left hugely disappointed at the numbers who failed to flock to the event on Friday and Sunday. Even Saturday was never really busy.

And before anyone accuses the Gazette of another attack on the festival's organiser, North Wiltshire District Council, just remember that the Gazette has backed the event for the last eight years with money, publicity and no little effort in producing programmes and marketing brochures.

The harsh truth about this year's event is that there was just not enough to do. Once people had wandered around the trade stands and community displays there was precious little else to see.

It was not surprising to see almost as many people wandering back out of the entrances as there were walking in.

Do the organisers really think a couple of circus performers and, God help us, a tour of the council offices constitute a community festival?

Do they think people want to drag their children around a display of plumbing engineering and some new cars on a hot Saturday in July?

Why were RAF Lyneham, the fire brigade, the police and the Hullavington barracks not invited to give displays? Where were the schools, the youth, the youth orchestras and marching bands?

The blame cannot be laid entirely at the feet of co-ordinator Michael Paul Williams, he was under-resourced and fixated with the need to cover costs.

But the time has come to review what the council's idea of a festival is, because this certainly was not one.