Bev Paul
Sugar Hill Records
PO Box 55300
Durham, NC 27707

Dear Bev:

For MerleFest 2004 we shall be able to offer several new options for our sponsorship partners. We are creating some exciting new properties, so please let me know immediately if you are interested in upgrading your sponsorship or making a lateral shift to a different MerleFest property. For MerleFest 2004 we shall for the first time offer sponsors the opportunity to purchase reserved seats in front of the Watson Stage. This will be done via a special one week window of opportunity this fall.

MerleFest 2003 received more media attention than any previous festival. Two weeks after the festival, MerleFest 2003 had tracked 31,900,000 impressions in measured print media, 19,300,000 more than the previous record final total of 12.6 million for last year. That doesn’t even reckon the impact of web exposure with MerleFest standing as the third most Googled music festival. That search engine currently lists almost 9900 web sites mentioning MerleFest. I shall email you a print media report when it is finalized in June. Since MerleFest 2002, glossy magazines in Japan and the United Kingdom have run major features about MerleFest, while the festival has been featured in Martha Stewart Living, Southern Living, USA Today, and Billboard, on the wires of Associated Press, Reuters, Knight-Ridder, and UPI, as well as on the web sites for Rolling Stone, CNNMoney, Yahoo!News, and USA Today. UNC-TV Public Television gave away some 160 MerleFest 2003 tickets, far more than anticipated, as pledge premiums during its March "Festival" fundraiser. Eighty-two radio stations in 16 states and Canada participated in MerleFest 2003 promotions, giving away $47,750 worth of tickets to their listeners. Including media sponsorships with that total, MerleFest 2003 bartered for more than $70,000 worth of radio airtime and cable TV advertising.

As we proceed with renewal, I hope we can review the entire sponsorship package. Our arrangement is subject to negotiation so that both the sponsors and MerleFest are happy with the deal. If, for example, you wish to obtain additional sponsor benefits, we can work together to upgrade your partnership to obtain these.

Your comments are encouraged. Please send them to me by email, fax, or snail mail. The growth we have experienced at MerleFest could not have been achieved without our sponsors. We hope that you share our pride in this exceptional annual event. If I know that you did not attend MerleFest 2003 personally, I have enclosed a copy of the program. If you attended, but did not pick up a program, please let me know, and I shall send you one. Also, please let me know if you would like a copy of the Economic Impact Report for MerleFest 2003, when it becomes available. Information from our audience surveys will become available later this summer. Please let me know if you want a copy of that report. If I have your email address, I shall email you .pdf files of these reports as they are released.

The 17th annual MerleFest is set for April 29-May 2, 2004. I trust that sponsorship of MerleFest proved successful for you and that you will again part of MerleFest next year.

Wishing you all the best with much appreciation,

Art Menius
Sponsorship & Marketing Coordinator

Nashville Tennessean May 1, 2003

By CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer
WILKESBORO, N.C. ó With late-day sunshine filtering through the budding trees and Emmylou Harris singing beautifully from the main stage of MerleFest Sunday afternoon, it seemed as if several thousand happy festivalgoers weren't so much sitting on as floating inches above the saturated North Carolina ground.

Harris, the acclaimed eclectic country chanteuse, marked a fitting final performance of this, the 16th annual MerleFest, regarded by many as the most talent-rich roots and bluegrass festival in the Southeast, if not the nation. Named for late guitar picker Merle Watson and hosted, in a grandfatherly sense, by folk singer and guitar legend Doc Watson, MerleFest is a four-day harbinger of spring and a showcase of talent from the multi-faceted Americana world.

This year's edition was heavy on bluegrass and, as always, long in Nashville talent. And even though the event saw its first-ever slight audience decline (with a reported paid attendance of just under 36,000), it was an especially enjoyable year, despite some rough weather on Friday.

Although I didn't get to experience any of Thursday's action in person, live broadcasts from the festival's main stages over XM Satellite Radio's Bluegrass Junction station heightened anticipation on the drive to the mountains. Doc and his duo partner Jack Lawrence knocked out quintessential numbers such as Black Mountain Rag and Make Me a Palette on Your Floor, as if to define the musical parameters of the weekend, from fiddle tunes to country blues, with hot picking whetting the appetite.

Friday featured Nashville cats Sam Bush (mandolin), Bela Fleck (banjo), Bryan Sutton (guitar) and Mark Schatz (bass), among others, joining fiddle wizard Vassar Clements with a main-stage jam that celebrated the Hermitage artist's 75th birthday.

Singer and songwriter Darrell Scott offered a dry solo show in the Walker Center theater, making use of the Wilkes Community College campus, where Merle-Fest takes place. Scott not only proved he's a brilliant tunesmith, but his solo guitar picking also melded the mastery of Jerry Reed and Richard Thompson. Nashvillians Casey Driessen and Jeff Coffin came out to raise the energy level on fiddle and sax, respectively, later in the show.

At night on the main stage, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band surprised by focusing on their electrified and poppier material (Mr. Bojangles, Fishin' in the Dark), even though their new album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 3, is a bluegrass-meets-roots collaboration with many traditional musicians who were at the festival. An encore jam with Doc on Way Downtown, the tune he did on 1972's first Circle album, was the nod the project demanded.

Fleck, with his roots/jazz band The Flecktones, ended the day with world-beat fireworks.

Saturday's highlight was a hard-core bluegrass jam putatively fronted by mandolinist Ricky Skaggs, with Sutton, Bush, dobro icon Jerry Douglas and others. Not only was it the moment the sun came out decisively to warm the festival, but it also featured as tight-knit and masterfully energetic a collaboration as you're likely to ever see on a stage. It wrapped with the ferocious Bill Monroe instrumental Get Up John, which had just that effect on several thousand people.

Sunday, Nashville Bluegrass Band joined Doc at a creekside stage for an hour of gospel bluegrass, followed by vocal masters Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver performing in a similarly sacred vein.

That infused the day with spiritual power, but three secular sets rounded out the weekend perfectly. Mountain Heart, a rising bluegrass act on Skaggs' record label in Hendersonville, proved why they should have been at MerleFest years ago: diverse song choice, blazing instrumental chops and magnificent voices.

Hot Rize, the 1980s stalwart bluegrass band from Colorado co-founded by current Nashvillian Tim O'Brien, offered an hour of cherished songs, including Hard Pressed and Shadows in my Room. Sutton stood in brilliantly on guitar for the late quartet member Charles Sawtelle.

Harris proved the perfect climax, tying together the folk, bluegrass, gospel and country with songs such as Monroe's Walls of Time and Lucinda Williams' Sweet Old World. Her clarion voice was evidence of the virtues behind the music, which has surged in the market in the last couple of years. It's real, inspirational and brimming with soul.

Darrell Scott, Sally Jones, Carla Gover, and contest chair Jim Lauderdale judged the finals of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest, which attracted 794 entries. First round judging from recordings produced twelve finalists who competed with the following results. General Category Finalists: First Place: "River" by Scott Carter, Nashville, TN; Second: "The Lone Cypress" by Ron Poythress, Carolina Beach, NC; Third: "I Can See Love" by Lisa Richards, Austin, TX. Country Category: First: "Rock Me Like A Lullaby" by Connie Townsend & Dave Parker, Elkins, WV; Second: "Almost True" by Molly Sloan, Nashville, TN; Third: "Wine & Beer When You Are Here" by Rowland Stebbins, Nashville, TN. Gospel Category Finalists: First: "By The River" by Ruth Bloomquist, Muskegon, MI; Second: "There Is A Place" by Lizza Connor, Nashville, TN; Third: "When Heavenly Hills Come Calling For Me" by Mark Brinkman, Pickerington, OH. Bluegrass Category Finalists: "First: "Sadie’s Song" by Adrienne Young, Nashville, TN; Second: "The Ghost of Silas Jordan" by Mark Brinkman, Pickerington, OH; Third: "I’m Getting Pretty Good At Being Lonesome" by Robert Wright, Staten Island, NY.

First place in the Doc Watson Guitar Championship went to 2002 banjo champion Steve Lewis of Todd, NC, with Brandon Davis from Independence, VA taking second and Tony Watt from Johnson City, TN finishing third. Ryan Cavanaugh, Chapel Hill, NC, captured the Merle Watson Bluegrass Banjo Championship. Ben Krakaner of Charlottesville, VA took second for the second consecutive year with Pulaski, VA’s Joey Cox third. Chris Harris of Eden, NC won the MerleFest Mandolin Contest, followed by Scott Pearson from Warren, PA and Josh Pinkham of Odessa, FL.