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The problem with nominating a stand-out performance was the consistently high standard of performances. In a few cases (Alister Spence, WATJ, Mark Ginsburg) I'd seen them recently so they stood out less despite their quality. I was very impressed with the Johannes Luebbers Dectet, partly because you don't often hear some of those instruments doing jazz and partly because of the originality and complexity of the compositions. The same could be said for Stu Hunter's The Gathering, and so it is no surprise that it won Best Independent Jazz Album in the 2010 AIR Awards. Ditto for the Jonathan Zwartz Ensemble. But for me the standout was Jef Neve, simply because of the energy of the trio, plus their originality. My companion agreed.

There is always going to be a problem fitting in all those who want to see an act like Kurt. What did disappoint me were some (hopefully not too many) who for one reason or another were able to see both performances. Given the queues this struck me as selfish. Perhaps a few had good reason, but even so, in the circumstances .....

Finally I agree that there are some very good photos from Wang on this site. Well done James and Allyson and any others.

Not sure what people or critics mean when they nominate highlights, but the Alister Spence Trio performance was the best set I have seen at Wang for years. The festival itself had a particularly strong lineup but some of the organisation needs to be "tweaked". You didn't need to be Nostradamus to realise that scheduling an act of Kurt Elling's stature on the Sunday night was going to lead to many hundreds of people missing out. A bit of forward planning, perhaps in the form a of book of numbered tickets, at least would have allowed the volunteers to allocate available seats for the second set. I prebooked but some poor devils waited hours and still missed out. Incidentally the answer is not to ticket all "name" concerts; the one ticket system is a significant part of the success of the festival and many jazz punters won't bother with the 5 hour drive if the festival turns into a pick and choose ticket ripoff. One final opinion, I'm a great fan of Mr Elling but someone needs to tell him that he's overdoing the "Great American Songbook" schtick and if he doesn't watch out he won't be the first artist turned into a boring celebrity by a grammy.

Loved the festival too! When the line-up is announced each year, there are always voices who harumph about this choice or that choice, opining that it's 'not going to be very exciting' etc. ... but that's the thing about this music... you can't say stuff like that because it's full of surprises! Highlights for me were Stu Hunter's The Gathering concert (!!) and Jonathon Zwartz's concert on Sunday night, including a moment when there was barely a dry eye in the house. Thanks AJ and team for a great festival. And thanks to ABC Jazztrack and Jazz Up Late for giving us snippets of Wangaratta all through the year!

Thanks Peter, yes all pics were taken 'in-house' by staff from ABC Jazz.

We also had a great time and got some great content from the festival which will roll out on ABC Jazz in the coming months.

And hats-off to Mal Stanley and his team for the huge number of recordings that they collected over the weekend...!

This year's festival was one of my favourites for many years, really enjoyed the program, with lots of highlights for me. Look forward to the next 21 years!

There are some great pics there, is it possible to credit the photographer/s?