Deventer, 30th September 2009

Dear Acoustic Strings lovers,

As you may know we have decided after 9 years in Raalte to move on to the Deventer Schouwburg. Several reasons caused this move, amongst others the changed market and another policy by the Community of Raalte. For this reason a festival in Raalte in 2010 under the same conditions was not possible.

The past 5 months we have worked in good corporation with the manager of the Deventer Schouwburg on a new festival concept in Deventer. In this period we regretfully haven’t been able to cover the financial risks sufficiently. In special we didn’t achieve to get the necessary subsidies and sponsor money for a new and bigger Acoustic Strings. Besides that the number of tickets sold was much too low. We thinks this is mainly due to the financial crisis.

Based on this the organization has decided to cancel the festival and to postpone it until there are better circumstances. At he same time the members of the board withdraw. We regret it very much that after so many lovely years there’s an end to such an outstanding festival, but we hope to meet again in the future.

The Deventer Schouwburg will refund the tickets that are already bought.

We thank you deeply for the trust you gave us and the awesome hours and days we have enjoyed the top musicians and music together!

On behalf of the core team of the International Guitar Festival ACOUSTIC STRINGS,

Ernst van der Sloot

Ben van Raan

Herman Albers

Stanley Dijkhuis