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Participation was invited from 'within the music, song and dance community in Ireland and abroad, and from academics and specialists in other music fields.' Responses and opinions from the floor were anticipated. The final list of topics presented covered: 1. Parallel traditions, 2. The song and instrumental traditions, 3. Culture and change, 4. Education-tradition-organisations, 5. Case studies and revival images, 6. Media, tradition and the industry, 7. Tradition and the notion of innovation.

Considering the debate generated by an RTÉ tv Late Late Show screening of a 'special' on Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's River of Sound TV series ­ particularly by the opinion of Tony MacMahon that its theme music didn't sound particularly Irish ­ it was decided to invite he and Ó Súilleabháin to present forty-minute keynote addresses on the opening night, to be chaired by singer/writer/publisher Robin Morton. Tony Mac Mahon is an well-known accordion player, an authority on Traditional music and was then a senior producer with RTE television; Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin is a pianist and composer, and is Professor of Music at the University of Limerick.

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's theme was 'Crossroads or Twin Track?' It raised a series of questions, it looked at change within traditional music and its community, cited the bodhrán and the music of Tommy Potts as case studies of this. It identified a process of change as having begun with the Revival in the 1950s, remarked on Potts' consideration of some of his playing as 'experimental'. Ó Súilleabháin held that traditional music could not recreate the music of the past masters because of their different era and mind-set, and he postulated the term 'trad-pop' as explication of traditional music's commercial popularity today.

Tony MacMahon noted a superficiality in new-found interest in commercial traditional music. He illustrated in a lengthy audio excerpt from River of Sound what he felt was the remoteness of (in particular Ó Súilleabháin's) modern interpretation of the music. He introduced the term 'aural carpet' as questioning of the quantity of traditional music currently used and received un-artistically in Ireland, saw commercial music's modern interpretation as 'scrubbed clean' of historic voice to appeal to ignorant audiences, holding that technically brilliant younger musicians today often lacked basic feeling. He defended the uncredited components of traditional music artistry. His view was that traditional music was being mined for ideas by commercial music, and expressed concern that future generations would lose 'the way' in the economic, popular tumult.
Thirty-nine other speakers ­ almost all musicians and singers ­ addressed the gathering, Cathal Goan (Teilifís na Gaeilge) chaired the final open session, and Tom Munnelly gave the closing address. Impromptu sessions of music followed debate; organised music for set dancing also featured, an exhibition of photography by Nutan accompanied the event, and over the weekend more than three hundred people took part.

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