As you may know, the 9th annual EWOB - European World Of Bluegrass Festival & Tradeshow was held in the beautiful town of Laroche sur Foron in the French Alps, not far from the Mont Blanc, a beautiful scenery for a Bluegrass Festival. Czech mandolin player and master luthier Eduard Kristufek of the great band Country Cocktail said it reminded him of playing at the stage of the Telluride Festival!
The 9th EWOB, organised by the French Bluegrass Music Association - FBMA (in co-operation with the EWOB Association and its national representatives) and its chairman Christopher Howard-Williams was a great success, perhaps the best EWOB ever since the Netherlands Bluegrass Music Association started it off in 1998. Besides have the right environment, the organisation was perfect, the staff was great and helpful, the audience was
Extremely pleasant and the accommodation for the bands was very pleasant. Many professional pictures were taken and a DVD of the EWOB is in preparation. Although it occasionally rained, over 3500 thousand visitors were recorded, which is a record for the EWOB festival! There were many nice and interesting concession stands and Bluegrass picking could be heard outside the festival in many places. Live Bluegrass gospel music was very well integrated in the official sunday church service. Also, the event was very well covered by among others Swiss radio in Geneva, national French radio and TV as well as many newspapers. Hats off to Christopher-Howard Williams and his team as well as to the mayor of the city of Laroche. See here for the bands, the audience and the activity at the 9^th EWOB

As result of the annual nomination process, 3 European Bluegrass Pioneers were awarded this year, Jarda Dvorak from the Czech Republic (leader and Stanley style banjoplayer of The Log and organiser of the annual Carter Stanley memorial festival), Phil Morley from England, banjo player, promotor of Bluegrass Music especially among youngsters, banjo instructor and one of the founding forces of the British Bluegrass Music Association - BBMA and its British Bluegrass News newsletter. The third European Bluegrass Pioneer awarded was Algirdas Klova from Lithuania for his stimulation and promotion activities for Bluegrass Music and Bluegrass fiddle playing. Their profiles and pictures will be published soon on the website of the EWOB Association www.ewob.org http://www.ewob.org 
For the election of the European Bluegrass Band of the Year, the organisers installed a professional jury of 15 people. All bands were judged by at least 7 people on 10 different criteria by our panel of judges. These criteria