VISITORS to this year's Eisteddfod in St. Davids probably won't think twice about the sweat and toil behind the event. For most people, it's a week-long festival, but for others it's the culmination of years of hard work.
The programme Eisteddfod Dewi on S4C next Wednesday, July 31, at 8 pm, charts the efforts made by Pembrokeshire to stage the National Eisteddfod in St. Davids, as well as the challenge of generating the enthusiasm needed to host the country's biggest cultural festival.
"We've been following the story for four years," said Graham Prichard from production company Teledu Elidir. "We look at everything - from finding a suitable place for the Gorsedd stones, as many as 40 sites were considered - to following the process of making the crown and the chair. We follow the planning stages, the decisions, the developments and the people."
The problems range from swallows nesting on the Eisteddfod field, which lies within the Pembrokeshire National Park, to the traffic arrangements which are rather complicated this year because of the small, winding roads leading from the town to the Eisteddfod site, between Solva and St. Davids.
"You identify with everyone," said Graham about the process of filming a fly-on-the-wall documentary. "You share in the experience of bringing the whole thing together, the excitement and the planning ahead. I think there's a feeling that this is going to be a very special Eisteddfod - Europe's largest cultural festival coming to the smallest city. Pembrokeshire will weave its magic around this Eisteddfod."