Morocco's 16th Fes Festival of World Sacred Music was generally a success, with the audience enjoying most of the concerts and having a good time.

There were some excellent innovations such as the Night in the Medina on Monday, where festival-goers managed to find their way around the medina to attend concerts in various venues. There were a few hiccups, such as the synagogue proving too small and the concert there being moved to a nearby outdoor venue where the sound wasn't so good and local children ran around noisily. But generally, this was a terrific idea and one we'd like to see repeated.

One of the great improvements of the festival was the beautifully designed shade cloth that afforded some relief from the sun at the Batha Museum. This was very much appreciated by the audience and performers alike.

The morning concert of Indian flutes was also a new departure for the festival. It proved extremely popular - another idea to continue next year.

The new Artistic Director, Alain Weber, did an excellent job on the whole. The View from Fez team's favourite concerts were Epi from Mongolia, Parvathy Baul, the South Korean drummers, the Sizero Tabla Experience - and Jordi Savall has to be congratulated for sheer audacity. Brickbats, though, to too much jazz and a less then impressive final night.

It has to be said that once again the foreign press were treated extremely shoddily. Badges were not ready in time, which made covering the opening concert very difficult. Management had no answers and weren't very polite either. There is great potential for the Festival PR to be improved substantially.

Ben Harper's non-arrival was a great disappointment to a lot of people. Harper's website is full of notes from frustrated fans, many having travelled great distances and made sacrifices to be there, like this one:
Hope you'll be doing well very soon !
But i just want to say that we've been waiting for this concert for a long time ! and what i see this morning : the concert is canceled and ben is hitting the rehab to join pearl jam , we are not going to be there man ! i would have liked to read something like the morocco concert will be delayed for another time . I sold the only guitar i have to buy me a ticket for the concert ! 500 DHs is quite expensive here . i ran away from home , cause my parents wouldn't let me go to fes , now they are angry as hell , i'm going back home tonight and i'm pretty afraid !

well hope you're injury will heal very soon for the pearl jam show ! but our feelings of deception as BH fans will take a long time to heal .

UNSUNG HEROES

Naturally most of the attention at a festival is on the performers and the chief organisers. However, behind the scenes, or in the public firing line, are dozens of others who work tirelessly to make certain everything happens as it should.

This year we would like to pay tribute to some of the unsung heroes who made this year's festival such a pleasure to work on.

Going from venue to venue, getting stories written, grabbing a bite to eat, processing the photographs and checking the facts can be exhausting and so when you arrive at a venue it makes a huge difference if you are greeted warmly and manage to find a position suitable for taking photographs.

At Bab al Makina, Hassan Zemmouri, the chief protocol officer from the office of the Wali of Fez, was a superb facilitator. Even under the pressure of hundreds of people wanting their preferred seat, Zemmouri was unflappable, friendly and courteous. He did his job superbly and made our festival so much easier. Thank you.

Meet the men who made the difference when it came to sound and lighting. Chris Ekers and his team at the sound desk of both major venues gave the audience the best possible experience, even when working with some very difficult and windy conditions The handling of the massive concert from Jordi Savall was exceptional, given the thirty or so people on stage.

This year's lighting was the best yet and for that we thank Christophe Olivier. Well done.

Sometimes it is the little things that make a difference. When The View from Fez team was tired and thirsty from charging up and down the Medina, it was Mamoan Belghiti who managed to find bottled water and, unasked, fetched it for us. On another occasion he materialised with a very much needed cup of coffee. A true gentleman. Shukran bizef, sidi.

Someone once said that looking after journalists was like herding cats - it is not an easy job. But Lamia Hejaj, whose responsibilities encompassed sponsorship and media partners, never lost her cool. With a phenomenal ability to recall everyone's names and field questions on every conceivable subject, she was a credit to the festival.

Being a security guard at an event where every audience member wants to get in and wants to get in now, is not easy. We take our collective hats off to the security team who did a difficult job with patience and even occasional charm!

Photographers can be a territorial bunch, marking out their favourite spots and guarding them. However, Gérard Chemit is an exception, kindly sharing photographs with The View from Fez. We would also like to thank photographers Lynn Evans Davidson, Mary Finnigan and Susanna Wyatt for providing additional photographs.

TRANSLATION AWARD

Hats off to the announcer, whose name we don't know, who corrected her pronunciation of the word 'sponsors' after a gentle nudge. It was so good to have English spoken so well.

WOODEN SPOON AWARD

Photographers and particularly TV and video camera operators can be particularly annoying to an audience. Each year we award the Wooden Spoon to an individual in the media who has not tried quite hard enough to blend in.

This year's winner nominated himself right from the start. Within days of the festival starting, the international journalists had dubbed him "Mr Bean". Barging in where others would not dare might get him points for bravery, but it went beyond that. On several occasions "Mr Bean" had to be extricated by security guards. Yet, with his winning smile, he never gave up. The high point of his exploits was an attempt to wriggle between the legs of a TV camera. He failed and had to be assisted in a backward wriggle by a security guard.

Source: riadzany.blogspot.com