EACH year the annual Grassington Festival takes place and brings to the Dales some of the best in the business for two weeks of art and entertainment.

But behind the scenes a small group of around 30 people are working hard to ensure that everything goes to plan after nine months of organisation.

The festival committee explained that the work all begins in September when it starts planning for the following year.

From then on meetings are held every month until the festival actually takes place.

There were many highlights to this year's festival, but for first-time committee member Alison Binns it was the High Summer Caribbean Carnival that really stood out.

The evening proved to be a big success and around 500 people enjoyed the fine weather and entertainment provided by North Stars Steel Orchestra and a high wire show from Aerial Theatre.

For artistic director Rowena Leder the finest performance of the festival came from Martinu Quartet with Christopher Langdown on piano.

Fellow committee member Hanneke Dye said that her favourite performance came from piano duo Nettle and Markham.

This year saw nine sell out shows including Kit and the Widow, John Sergeant and the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

There were also two West End shows Pass the Port, a Noel Coward play, and Stones in His Pockets.

Overall the festival committee believe that this year's events have been a resounding success.

But even months of planning cannot prevent wires coming out of equipment, which happened during an evening with John Sergeant and resulted in a loss of sound for audience members watching by television link.

Nor can it stop people from being directed to the wrong meeting point so that 19 people wanting to spend a day learning how to make dry stone walls missed out.

But in both cases refunds were offered immediately and in the second case committee members have arranged for those who missed out to enjoy a similar event at their cost.

The surplus money raised by the two-week festival not only goes towards next year's budget but is also put towards providing arts activity days for children at local primary schools.