Cam MusicWhat Cam Music covers
Cam Music is an independent guide to two calendars that many listeners in the east of England end up living by: the concert life of Cambridge, which follows the university terms, and the British music festival season, which runs from the first spring jazz weekends to the last fields in September. The site covers both from the same starting point, the city on the Cam, and treats getting to the music as part of the subject. A festival that is wonderful on paper but impossible to reach without a car, or a concert that ends twenty minutes after the last train, is a different proposition from one you can walk home from.
The guides are written for people who go to music rather than for the industry. They explain how things work: how choral evensong is run in a college chapel, what a day ticket at a folk festival usually includes, how a family field differs from the main campsite, where the late trains go.
How the site is organised
The site follows the course of a year rather than a directory. Each section is a stop on that course, and each one links onwards to the next.
| Section | The question it answers | Best read |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge | What is on in the city across the three terms, and where | Before term starts |
| Evensong | How to hear the college choirs, and what to expect inside | Any week in term |
| Venues | Which halls, chapels and rooms host which kind of music | When a listing names a venue you do not know |
| Festivals | When each kind of UK festival happens, and how they differ | In winter, when tickets go on sale |
| Plan a trip | How to get there and back from Cambridge without a car | The week before you go |
| Listening | Where to hear Cambridge music without a ticket | Out of term, and on Christmas Eve |
How facts are checked
Everything on the site that can change, dates, times, venues, prices, ticket rules, is taken from the organiser, the venue or the college concerned, and the guides link to that source. Where a festival keeps to a pattern, the guides describe the pattern ("usually the last weekend of July") rather than a single date, because a pattern stays true when a date moves. Prices appear only as ranges or as the way tickets are usually structured, and always with a pointer to the organiser's own ticket page.
When something is uncertain, it is left out. A guide that says less but is right is more use than one that fills the gaps with guesses, and that matters most for the details people act on: the time a chapel door opens, whether a field allows children free, which station a shuttle bus leaves from.
How festivals and venues are chosen
A festival, venue or series appears in a guide because it belongs in the picture of the season, and inclusion is an editorial decision made on whether its details can be checked. Small events get the same treatment as large ones: a lunchtime recital series in a college can sit next to a festival with a hundred thousand visitors when that is what a reader in Cambridge would actually go to. Festival names, logos and recordings belong to their owners, and photographs on the site are credited in their captions.
Corrections
Festivals change sites, chapels change service times and venues close. If you spot something that has gone out of date, the contact page explains how to send a correction and what to include so that it can be checked quickly. Corrections are made in the guide itself, so the page you read is always the current version.