My first trip to the festival this year - loved the energy and enthusiasm, think I’m a convert.  My trip was as a result of my daughter’s appearance in a theatre production.  During the the event I became totally obsessed by searching for reviews of her show, as did she.

Your question, above, is referring to/asking about the interaction between the potential audience and the reviewer.  I would love to see some discussion from the point of view of the performers and their interaction with the reviewers.  In my daughter’s case there were two four star reviews in the first three days and thereafter, nothing.  I know that they, the cast, were absolutely despondent towards the end of the three weeks and looked on the event as a failure.  My job was to keep her head up and point out the obvious that two four stars was a lot better than no reviews at all or a number of two and ones. 

It seemed that the whole point of the three weeks was really to get reviewed and the exposure to audiences was almost second.  They have gone through a “lessons learnt” exercise but still don’t know how to attract reviewers.  Do they choose shows to review by - venue, word of mouth , what everyone else is reviewing,  .......?

I’d love to read some reviewers thoughts on how they choose and what their influences are.  With thousands of shows I must admit that I don’t envy them the task.