The Morning After...
Over the four days of the Festival, the has provided a valuable flow of news, tips and information. Over breakfast today it offered a thoughtful overview of the past four days of music, business and hard partying.
In a retrospective piece titled Michael Corcoran suggests that - like the music industry itself - the festival is now suffering from a proliferation of "free" music beyond its boundaries. These take the form of fringe events and promotional parties (240 of them this year) with complimentary drinks and even goodie bags - laid on by organisations ranging from the UK's Q Magazine to Levi jeans. 
Corcoran quotes an Atlanta publicist as saying "It's gotten so big you don't need to buy a badge anymore." And there's your problem, right there. Just like the major record labels, the official festival is seeing its source of funding being cut away from under its feet. None of this had even occurred to me in the past few days, and if you're curious about some of the wider issues surrounding this event the article is well worth checking out.
This morning, with the festival pretty much over, the roads between our hotel by the Colorado river and the bars and clubs of 6th Street were uncannily deserted after the frenetic crowds of the past few days - and wet from the cleaning trucks.
I snapped a few last shots on my phone before heading back to the hotel to get packed and ready for the day's journey home.
