chin, were called to a meeting by the Chewton Soldiers Memorial Park Committee last month.Mr Ellis said the park committee provided a list of conditions on the festival staying at the park, including $2000 for camping - up from a previous maximum collection of $800 to $1200.Other conditions included more toilets, moving the Troubador tent and no camping under the elms. Mr Ellis said the conditions

related to the park being used for soccer."The park's becoming more and more a soccer venue, and the soccer club don't want any vehicular movement across it," he

said.Mr Ellis said the festival's organisers felt the hike in camping costs along with the other conditions made it impossible to hold in Chewton, so an alternate venue was sought, and found, at the Newstead Racecourse Recreation Reserve. The Chewton Folk Festival had been running for six years and had gone from strength to strength.

"Camping numbers have built up, the accommodation providers have taken bookings from the day after the last festival," Mr Ellis said. The Chewton community was very upset at the loss of the festival. Many of the town's businesses relied heavily on the income from the festival, Mr Ellis said, including St John's Church."It wasn't its only income, but it was one of its major sources of income," he said. The festival's organisers aimed to bring the event back to Chewton in 2008, but that was not a certainty.

"If it is successful at Newstead, it's going to be very difficult to get it back," he said."That is one of the tragic things, given the circumstances."You have to go there and support it, but it has got every chance of being a success."Pat Milthorpe, from the Chewton Soldiers Memorial Park Committee, said that as the committee was a Section 86 Committee of the Mount Alexander Shire, it was directing all requests for comment to the council. Shire chief executive officer Adrian Robb was unavailable for comment.