Efestivals Spurious Awards 2006

Reuters, London : 20 October 2006

The world of music was in a state of shock today with the annual unveiling of the winners of the "Efestivals Spurious Festival Poll 2006". The long-running traditional annual awards ceremony, which has been up and running since twenty minutes ago, caused wide-spread consternation and despair amongst literally several of the festival going public. The awards - which are by comparison amongst the most respected in the festival world - are significantly different to other polls of a similar nature. Unlike other awards, they are based not on a random popularity contest accessible to all and promoted with gusto by individual festivals and as such reduced to that of a poor man's marketing tool, but recognise the importance and significance of the individual festival fan's experience. The awards this year emphasised this in it's results, which do not seek to pat individual events on the back for being able to muster more support by direct mailings and begging e-mails. As such the award for Best Festival was awarded to "Whichever festival you enjoyed the most". Immediate reaction was one of stunned silence, apart from one incredulous observer who asked where the "Whichever Festival" was held. Best band was "Try comparing apples with apples" who were presumably a new and upcoming EMO band. When the Best Smaller Festival was announced as "Whichever festival you enjoyed the most that had a attendance of less than an arbitrary number" the same incredulous observer had finally caught on.

Said one source close to efestivals said "The individual choice of a festival is down to the individual involved. Sure there can be all kinds of different music available at some festivals, and others concentrate on specific types of music, but at the end of the day, it's impossible to say. We'd rather the festivals didn't feel they had to waste time on trying to organise votes like some kind of bizarre election, but rather focused on what is really important"