The Line Up and the website.

Which comes first - the line up or the website?

It seems they are coming together, in an explosive crescendo of organisational blissfulness.

The line up is in the expert hands of Gordon Reilly and features choice curation throughout the weekend. We have Sunday afternoon presented by Lau, record company showcases, a few of our old favourites and a rake of hot new talent, a full (and yet provisional and open to alteration) line up announcement is on the cards for next week.

And the website? The site is all texted up and schemed out and contains outstanding Victorian artwork by Rufus White - it just might be released tomorrow with tickets going on sale after the weekend.

Lets talk about trees.

Considering where we are we feel it's very important to...

Going down the pub.

Friday we are heading down the Old Bridge Inn to see Insider favourites Donna Maciocia and Paul Gilbody in their latest collaboration, MaGoodBody, then next Tuesday we are going back to see The Vaccines.

Why go anywhere else?

The Board of Backwoods reconvenes.

Three months exactly before Insider 2011 we took a wander round Inshriach on a beautiful day in the snow. It reminded us how amazing the Backwoods stage and bar is and got us totally stoked up about our plans for this year.

We then convened in the Backwoods board room (ahem - The Old Bridge Inn) and hammered some of the finer points of the line up into shape. With any luck its only days before the Insider website version 1 goes live and we make some sort of announcement.

If you see increasingly peculiar moustaches around Aviemore over the coming months it may have something to do with everyone getting it Victori-on.

Insider website and tickets.

People keep asking whether we are selling tickets yet, who is playing or even if we have sold out but the truth is we don't like to hurry these things. The Insider website is about to leap into shape, the cogs of design, production and planning are turning and once we are ready we will do a mail out, hit you with a line up to die for (which we will actually finish 2 days before the festival) and put tickets on sale.

See you in June.

The shape of things to come.

Thanks to the lovely folk at Highland Tipis our giant saddlespan main stage will be accompanied by these beautiful tipis which will function as a Wild West saloon bar / gold prospectors hang out.

Celtic Connections.

Big thanks to the organisers of Celtic Connections for giving us the opportunities and the inspiration to knock the Insider into shape.

So, what do we remember? Lots of friends from last year are back on board. Joe Acheson (aka Hidden Orchestra) are up for a reprise of last years mad bad Backwoods stage collaborations, only on the main stage with lots of visuals. Louis from Admiral Fallow had barely left Inshriach and already knew he had no choice. We firmed up a brief and a budget (then blew most of it on cocktails) with Lau, they are curating the main stage for Sunday (the brief was to keep it peculiar). The fine Mr Tom Pickles of Banana Sessions and Horndog Brass Band fame has his negotiating hat on (an 8 piece brass funk band gives him the upper hand). Sam Lee of the Magpies Nest, fresh from winning his Arts Foundation Folk Fellowship, will be all over the Balladlands. We still love Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers very much and Rachel Sermanni was either angelic or right in the thick of it throughout.

We spoke to press and DJs, promotors, agents and bookers. We are planning on collaborations with a couple of festivals (of which more later) and we have a whole heap of new talent for this year that just needs whittling into shape.

It just took 2 days lying in a dark room to get over it.