I think many of you here have been hitting on an important point, -the balance between providing a way for the performers to present their work to a wider public while still feeling that the event is controlled by our interests yet still 'open' enough, just enough, to the straight world so that the khaki arrivistes feel secure about attending and getting some exposure to the 'underground'. This is a real old American cultural tradition that goes way back to the founding days of New Orleans and manifested later famously in places like the Cotton Club in Harlem. Mainstream people want to feel this sense of 'really living', which is had by rubbing elbows with the demimonde.
The Howl festival is too new to have all these questions and conflicts worked out. If the overall organizers were veteran producers and had a more focussed mission things could have been more pointed. But maybe that is not what should happen afterall, in the vortex of diversity that is the EV. That is the anarchy element, each presenter had the opportunity here to make the festival be what would be best for their own work, their own art, their own vision. I don't want to sound politically corny, but that is a kind of cultural democracy.