because there is some confusion about this festival and OMNIA  I have written this rather long blog to explain a little, I hope it's appreciated :-)   (skip it , if you don't know this festival)
 

Dear audience of the last eleven years...I am so sorry ... I gave YOU my solemn promise in the burning fire of the wickerman that OMNIA would play at Castlefest EVERY YEAR for as long as there is a Castlefest... because Once (a long time ago) , Jenny and myself decided to help a small non-profit Dutch fantasy Festival to become MORE than it was destined to be ...MUCH MORE... we had a vision.
We joined the organisation (as volunteers without any form of pay ofcourse) and became the Creative directors of the festival and OMNIA promoted them world wide , asking our fans  everywhere we played to come and join us at this very special festival in holland that we called our HOME... We gave our heart and soul to that festival (even playing concerts for FREE for them) We loved that festival, We even gave them the honour of doing our Wickerman ritual there each year and I personally designed their "look" and all their logo's which they still use to this day :-)

We could do this so easily and without fear of being "used", because I had given my word of honour to the "main" owner of Castlefest (Mark van der Stelt) that OMNIA would always make time to play there, no matter what other offers would come , we would ALWAYS play there and promote it to the best of our ability
And Mark GAVE ME HIS SOLEMN WORD OF HONOUR (sworn on his altar and all that is holy in nature) that there would ALWAYS be a stage for OMNIA to play on Castlefest.  
When solemn oaths are exchanged between true Pagans it should enough.
We thought we had found our HOME...

But
That was then... when things were all non-profit and cute and they were still grateful for our help...

This is now
Now Castlefest has indeed become a big succesfull international fantasy festival and Mark Looks like a cool viking and is Chief executive of Vana bv. (which owns and manages Castlefest as well as other lifestyle  "events"  and projects.)
Now jealousy and misunderstanding have reared their ugly heads

Because without warning, Mark has publicised (rather weirdly) that Castlefest will no longer book OMNIA!  ... just like that...
There will be No more OMNIA shows on CASTLEFEST!
He gives no explanations to the public, he expressly FORBIDS any discussions about it on his public media , he does NOT care about what YOU the audience thinks or feels about it. His message is simply:

"DO NOT COME TO CASTLEFEST ,IF YOU COME THERE FOR OMNIA OR WHAT OMNIA STANDS FOR"

Mark sent us a short e-mail (e-mail !!??) to explain and terminate all our years of working together... to evict us from out home...
 In this curt mail it becomes quite clear that He has really come to hate and despiseOMNIA now, and in particular Jenny and Me!!  (Although I'm not sure what did we ever do to him except be succesfull and fill his festival with cool people?)
He really wants HIS PERSONAL DREAM ... HIS festival... to carry on without US
       It is simply a fact...
Because he's surpressing all information in the hope of drowning out any dissenting voices and a lot of people are confused about what is going on
(and YOU are asking us about it) that I have decided to explain a little bit
 I'm not gonna do any mudslinging or stuff like that, I know too much about Castlefest, I could write a book!.. but that's not my my thing really.
 this is just to stop the discussions with some clarity and dignity.
(I owe YOU that!... I always like to tell the truth)
anyway... For those of you that are curious I'll quote you some important bits from Mark's e-mail to us here:

MARK SAYS:

1 "OMNIA has no part whatsoever in the philosophy that makes Castlefest ... OMNIA does not belong there"

2: "OMNIA spreads HATRED from the stage instead of Love..."

3: "the Castlefest ethic is about respect to one another  and goodwill to all men... something that OMNIA does NOT have!"

4:"OMNIA does NOT show enough respect for the NEW CASTLEFEST wickerman-ritual"

5: "OMNIA has become unneccessary, Castlefest is popular enough now.  The sales numbers have been counted on days that OMNIA doesn't play and it doesn't matter anymore if OMNIA is booked or not,  Castlefest will earn enough money and  DOES NOT NEED OMNIA ANYMORE... PEOPLE WILL BUY ENOUGH TICKETS FROM US ANYWAY"

Those are Mark's words

So... I'm very sorry to say that we cannot play for YOU there anymore, because OMNIA has been thrown out of what we thought of as our 'home" and is NOT ALLOWED to play on Castlefest... (even for free!)... we don't belong there,
 so I cannot keep my promise to YOU

If you were planning to travel to Castlefest to see OMNIA there, or if you were expecting to find anything of OMNIA or our Philosophy on Life,Mutant Monkeys, Nature and Paganism there, then please don't go, you'll be disappointed.
OMNIA is NOT welcome there anymore, so NEITHER are YOU.

ah well... fuck it..

 It's not the end of the world!...It's only a festival...but yes, my heart is broken...it hurts, but I'm getting used to hurt in this world of politicians ,moneymakers, liars and oath breakers.

The human race is fucked, this is just one more symptom.

But we'll keep on and I refuse to change
OMNIA will play where we are WELCOME
Castlefest is a great festival, but there are Many many great festivals around the world who DO want us to play there!
we'll just go to them to play for YOU!
and YOU can go and see us there :-)
Keep watching our agenda for details!

Greenthingz and PaganFolk Musick! (because in the end, THAT's what it's all about? isn't it?)

Shaman SteveSic

ps: this is one of the weirdest blogs that I have ever had to write... usually it's like "we are playing at suchansuch a festival! yeah!" but this is about NOT playing a festival... weird huh?...  :-(

pps: I should actually be blogging about important stuff like the fact that our webshop is working again! or that we start our "PRAYER CLUB TOUR" next month!... ah well...another time maybe ;-)

ppps: drawing by me ,made a long time ago :-)