The setting up took about nine months and was developed by Paul Rayment, Philip Abrams and George Scurfield before Ken Woollard was asked to run the festival temporarily. In the 1960s the Rayments, Sharkeys, Scurfields and Woollards were all associated with Cambridge Labour Party and the folk club to greater or lesser extents. Jack Sharkey had the original idea which may have been linked to "Jazz on a Summer's Day" (1958), the documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and he involved Paul Rayment. Jack Sharkey also had the idea to hold the festival at Cherry Hinton Hall, and his engagement with folk music was instrumental to the original initiative.