There are festivals and there are boutique festivals. Moseley Folk Festival is the epitome of the latter. Jo Ind previews this year's event.

I remember Glastonbury. The one and only year I went it was hot. It was humid. And it was huge.

I suffered from Glastonbury Leg as I traipsed from the car park to the stage, Glastonbury Angst as I got lost en route and Glastonbury Embarrassment as I got sunstroke and there was nowhere I could go to chuck without anyone seeing.

The problem was one of scale. I liked the music. I liked the ale. I liked the camping stoves. I liked all the little stalls. I just didn’t like sharing them with more than 100,000 people, that’s all.

For people who prefer intimacy to mass euphoria, Moseley Folk Festival, held in Moseley Park on August 29-31, comes into its own.

Founded by friends Gerv Havill and Carl Williams three years ago, the festival is licenced for no more than 2,000 people – bliss.

It is what is known as a boutique festival, a small scale festival with a niche.

It attracts top acts. Friday night will be headed by trip hop band Morcheeba,

Jose Gonzalez is top of the bill on Saturday, which also sees performances from The Bees and The Destroyers, while on Sunday fiddler Seth Lakeman will be playing as well as Waterson:Carthy, The Toy Hearts and Ian Campbell, the founding father of Birmingham’s folk scene and dad to UB40’s Robin and Ali.

The quality of the music is there, but so is the home to home feel – that sense that your kids are safe and you are not going to get lost or drown in a sea of so much deliciousness you don’t know where to begin.

When the festival was founded three years ago, there was a small stage to act as a showcase for homegrown talent.

Birmingham’s Vijay Kishore was a virtual unknown when he first played but he attracted a massive crowd. Wolverhampton’s Scott Matthews played there and now he’s got a worldwide fan-base.

This year, as last, there will be a free CD of the people who play on the small stage to expand their exposure to potential fans.

It all contributes to the intimate feeling as well as making the festival an integral part of the city’s musical talent and scene.

And it is not just in the field of music that there is homegrown talent.

The knitting group Stitches and Hos will be there encouraging anyone to indulge in a bit of knit and a purl.

Some pirates will leap out from the seventeenth century and entertain the children with scary tales of the seas.

There will be a fairground, powered not by generators, but by a chap from an old gypsy caravan with ropes and a pully.

Much of the food will be local, including French cuisine from King Heath’s Maison Mayci and ale from Purity Brewing, a company based in Studley.

And for Brummies this all comes with the knowledge they are not adding to the carbon footprint by getting there. It is there on their doorstep.

Gerv and Carl set up Moseley Folk Festival when L’Esprit Manouche a gypsy jazz festival held in Moseley Park folded.

Gerv owns Mission Print, based in Digbeth, a company that supplies stickers and teeshirts for festivals. Carl owns Hollywood Events, a company that supplies marquees for festivals.

The pair became friends as they got to know each other through their overlapping business interests. They had both been involved in L’Esprit Manouche when it ran between 2003 and 2005.

When the festival finished three years ago, Carl suggested to Gerv they create a festival of their own, but with broader appeal.

“I thought it was a great idea,” says Gerv. “The park is a perfect venue for a festival.

“It isn’t landscaped in a sterile way. It’s been untouched for 100 years and slopes into a natural amphitheatre with the beautiful backdrop of the lake.

“You can just forget where you are – which is two miles from the city centre.

“It’s a perfect place for Mission Print and for me personally.”

Carl had the contacts with the music business through his marquee work and so the two took the gamble and launched the first Moseley Folk Festival in 2006.

It had its scary moments, not least because at that time the licensing laws changed which meant if they wanted more than 499 people in the park, they had to go through a process involving putting notes on lamp-posts and consulting local residents.

It cost them more than £2,000 and took time and energy they had not accounted for, but they needed at least 1,000 people for the festival to break even, so they had no choice but to go ahead.

It was a gamble that paid off as more than 1,000 people did come and the festival was a great success.

“I’d say we got 80 per cent of it right,” says Gerv.

They had a few problems with the ale – they ran out, which is bad news, but they learnt and did it all much bigger and better the following year.

Now the festival is in its third year and the challenge is to grow it without losing its intimacy and homegrown feel.

The licence still stands at 2,000 people maximum, so there is no danger of it becoming large scale. But they have made it a day longer, adding this Friday to the event.

“There will always be arguments about what’s ‘folk’ and what isn’t ‘folk’ ” says Carl. “We keep Sunday for traditional folk music. Saturday is for bands that you might describe as ‘folk influenced.’

“By adding Friday we have got a day when we can put on bands that really want to play our festival, that aren’t traditional folk bands but that can attract a new audience.”

“We like to ‘cross-pollinate’,” says Gerv. “That’s the word we use on our funding applications.”

With the long-term weather forecast predicting a great weekend, it is all looking good for Moseley’s very own boutique baby.

Are they not worried that they might get it so well established that Moseley Folk Festival becomes institutionalised in the future?

“Oh no,” says Carl with a smile. “We’ll just throw some mad bands into the mix to stop that happening. We’ll keep shocking people.”

* Moseley Festival is held from 29 – 31 August at Moseley Park, Moseley, Birmingham. For further details call 0778 944 0026 or visit moseleyfolk.com

* To see websites used to research this article go to http://delicious.com/joind/festivals