The Southeastern Manitoba Festival has drawn a large number of entries again this year. Festival President Sharon Guenther says there will be 1,107 participants in the event which runs from February 18th to March 19th. That is down about 40 from last year. She notes entries are strong as usual in piano and vocal performance, although the number of singers is down a little.

"Our vocal took a little bit of a hit last year. One of our most amazing vocal teachers, Sheila Ardies, has moved out west so we've noticed a difference there. But other teachers have come up and so we don't have a huge drop in numbers. It's very small actually."

Guenther says dance entries are up a little while guitar is holding steady and strings continue to fluctuate. She notes in speech and theatre arts, it's a mixed bag.

"I think we've had some difficulty over the last couple of years in getting people interested in Speech Arts and Theatre Arts. We have an increase in speech choirs this year so we are very excited about that. But there individual people who come out to say some poems or do some readings, that has decreased, We would like to see that increase over the years."

Meanwhile, Guenther says they are very pleased as a board to have again attracted first-rate adjudicators for the festival.