Every current member of The Outside Capering Crew has been a winner in the John Gasson Jig Competition at Sidmouth, as dancer or musician.

The Crew was formed as a result of Simon Pipe winning the solo prize in 1995.

We recruited our newest dancer, Emma Laister, exactly a week before she won the solo competition in 2023 (in the kit of another team). She and fellow Crew member Molly Pipe also won the Audience Prize for their double bacca pipes jig, which Emma had learned the weekend before.

In between, we have won in multiple categories:

• Solo – six wins
• Double – three wins
• Audience Prize – three wins
• Over 40s prize – four wins
• Best new entrant – one win (Molly Pipe, 2nd overall)

In addition, Crew dancers have won in the solo and doubles categories as members of other teams on five occasions. Emma Wooders won the double jig prize at Sidmouth with her husband, and then claimed the relatively new jig dancing prize at Whitby Folk Festival in the same month – the first (and so far, only) time someone has won both competitions in the same year.

Simon Pipe has won the solo prize at Sidmouth a record five times.

The Crew now sponsors the Audience Appeal prize, reflecting our commitment to entertaining dancing.

Click on any of the thumbnails to see Ben Potton’s pictures from the 2019 John Gasson Jig Competition:

Other prizes

In 2017, Crew dancer Molly Pipe won the Future of Young Folk award at Bromyard Folk Festival for her unaccompanied, traditional-style folk singing. Her prize included bookings to sing at Warwick and Bromyard folk festivals in 2018.

Lawrence Wright won Sidmouth festival’s melodeon competition in 2000. Sadly, this no longer takes place.

In 2010 we also won the slightly less serious Stick and Bucket competition at Chippenham Folk Festival, an annual event inspired by a dance in one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld stories. We remember nothing about the dance, except that it involved tipping buckets of water over Simon.

In 2017 we also won the competition (there was no actual prize) for collecting the most money at Ely Folk Festival, thanks to the efforts of Emma Wooders and possibly our ability to entertain and impress. Other festival organisers might like to bear this in mind…

Read about the John Gasson Jig Competition here.

Watch some of our winning jigs: