The Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival (IVFDF) is the longest running folk festival in the United Kingdom. It differs from most other festivals in two respects: it moves location every year, and it is hosted and organised by student folk societies. However it attracts ex-students and folk music enthusiasts, who descend on the host university for a weekend of music, dance, song and sleep deprivation. The festival is always run in either the last weekend in February or the first weekend in March; the festival at Exeter University in 2009 was attended by around 1169 different ticket holders — one of the most of any IVFDF up to that time (the previous record was just over 1000 attendees at the IVFDF in Manchester in 1986).