"Folk Alliance takes place in one hotel in Memphis, which is booked out just for the music; after 10pm, every room becomes a showcase, and over three floors, all the rooms are buzzing with live music," Moore explains. "It's an amazing adrenaline-fuelled event, and because what the US regard as folk music is a lot broader than how we traditionally define the genre in the UK, I realised that over the last 10 years, The Bedford has actually been very 'folk' under those terms: we've always encouraged organic performance; we don't like playback; and we have a number of bluegrass, Americana, and singer-songwriter artists coming through our doors throughout the year."
As a result, Folkfest was born in 2011, and it has evolved ever since. What started out as a couple of nights of live music in The Bedford's main theatre soon became a three-stage event utilising the multi-room venue's Tavistock Room and Ballroom; and this year, Moore pulled out all the stops and introduced a fringe element, turning a string of local Balham cafes into temporary venues. He even converted the local Sainsbury's car park into an outdoor 'Community Stage'.
He couldn't have made it happen, he says, without getting a number of partners on board, one of which is Flare Audio, which Moore cites as "entirely revolutionary".
"My venues have always had a reputation for having a great sound, and I was under the impression that I had it perfect, until I heard what a Flare system could do," says Moore, who also ran the now legendary Kashmir Klub as well as Hammersmith's Regal Room. "I recently got a call from Gary Langan, who was raving about their new line array system, and urged me to come to the demo at Hatfield House, so I did. When I heard the [X5] system, I was amazed; it was a really windy day, and what astounded me in particular was the consistency of the audio throughout. I've worked and played at a number of festivals and the stages often sounded atrocious, as when the wind blows you lose all the top end and everything becomes muffled - but that's just live music outdoors... I thought. How wrong I was!"
"I thought it was some kind of magic trick, so I asked Davies [Roberts, Flare founder] how he did it. He explained some of the technology to me, half of which I got, but I didn't really care - he was doing it! And the system was small too; in reality, it's a main stage festival rig that you can put in the back of a splitter van, which is just insane. That's when I had my lightbulb moment and thought 'wouldn't it be nice to have their system as part of Folkfest to make all of the rooms sound amazing?' And that's what we did."
A range of Flare Audio kit was deployed for Folkfest: for The Bedford's main theatre, two X3As and a pair of Q18 bass enclosures; for the Ballroom, a further two X3As with a pair of SB12As; for the Tavistock Room, a pair of S1s and an SB18C; and for the New Bar, two S1s and one Q12.
According to Moore, this "Flare showcase" made his venue sound better than it ever has, and S1 in particular really had him scratching his head...
"The power of S1 is staggering - I mean, the New Bar setup is essentially a 7.5k rig that's no bigger than a pair of [Yamaha] NS10s; In all my years in live music, I have never seen that," he smiles, adding that X3A sounded "amazing" before the Flare team had done any fine tuning. "It's so nice to be in at the ground floor with something like this; it's clear that Flare is right on the cutting edge of loudspeaker technology."
Over its three days, Folkfest attracted 1,500 people and more than 100 artists - and that's not including the fringe venues. According to Moore, it was the best yet, and by some margin
