Surrounded by young people and with surroundings that are still relatively unfamiliar it is quite easy to think of the Urdd Eisteddfod as something fairly new.
It is only when you look at the programme and see the list of towns, cities and districts that underlines the fact that the Eisteddfod's history stretches back to 1929. The first was held in Corwen and the second in Caernarfon before the first festival was staged in South Wales in 1931 at Swansea.
Apart from a break between 1941 and 1945 due to World War 2 the Eisteddfod has alternated between North and South Wales ever since. Cardiff has hosted the festival most with four visits since 1965 and is set to host the event again in two years time returning, as the Urdd had hoped, to the new Wales Millennium Centre.
It is always interesting when the Eisteddfod's history is brought up.
The first ever Urdd Eisteddfod crown was brought to the Maes yesterday after it was found in a Swansea second-hand shop.
It was won at the 1931 festival by Rhiannon Collins from Tymbl – a pupil at Llanelli Grammar School for Girls.
Years later the crown, still in its velvet blue box, was sold when Rhiannon, by then married to a vicar, retired from a large vicarage in Llansawel near Swansea to a smaller house near Aberystwyth.
The crown was spotted by Mallt Anderson from Cardiff. She bought the crown from the dealer and started researching its history.
After tracking down the crown winner and reuniting the crown with its winner they decided to return it to a school in Llanelli. The grammar school does not exist anymore, and so the crown was offered to Ysgol Gyfun y Strade, the only Welsh language secondary school in the town.
Chaired bard and Eisteddfod chief, Tudur Dylan Jones, who also teaches Welsh at the school, said: "We are very proud to have received this special gift. The school had no crown to use at their school’s annual eisteddfod."
The tiny crown would not fit onto anyone's head, apart from the popular Mistar Urdd gonks, so the school commissioned well-known west Wales craftswoman Mari Thomas to make a larger crown to the same pattern. This is awarded annually at the school's Eisteddfod every February.
Sadly Rhiannon (Collins) Williams died in December last year, aged 93.
Earlier this week I met retired farmer Dewi Thomas has scored a remarkable hat-trick at the Urdd Eisteddfod.
He competed at the first Eisteddfod held in the town 72 years ago and helped organise the festival staged in Carmarthen 40 years ago.
This week the sprightly 81 year old helped judge art competitions on the FUW stand.
He said: "The Urdd Eisteddfod has only been held in Carmarthen three times and we've broken records every time. In 1935 and 1967 the festival broke the attendance record, the record for most money taken at the gate and the most money raised locally. I'm certain we'll do it again this year.
Mr Thomas said he had sweet memories of the 1935 Eisteddfod as he sang in a winning choir and competed in a recitation competition.
"I was only nine years old and I enjoyed it tremendously. One of the things I remebre vividly is hearing the founder of the Urdd, Sir Ifan Edwards, addressing the pavilion."
He also played an influential role in the Eisteddfod in Carmarthen in 1967 as the secretary of the Executive Committee.
At last year's Ruthin festival I met Beti Watson who competed in the first ever Urdd Eisteddfod in Corwen in 1929. Now 91, she remembers vividly taking part in the drama competition.
She said: "I was 12 years old and I remember the fun at the practices and the procession. There wasn't an Eisteddfod Maes like now. There was a procession through the town and I remember making a large banner for the procession."
The following year the Eisteddfod was held at Caernarfon, and Mrs Watson remembers taking part in the dancing competitions.
"I can't remember much of the competing, but we went on the train and I had a new blouse to wear. Those were two very important things, because we didn't travel very far and didn't have new clothes to wear that often," she recalled.
Mrs Watson, who nursed at Ruthin Hospital after leaving school, said she has watched the Urdd develop through the years.
My own history with the Urdd Eisteddfod doesn't stretch that far back. But a quick look at the programme again revealed I have visited, competed at, taken parties to or covered journalistically 27 of the festivals. My colleague in the press room, Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald photographer was unaware he has covered the last 25 years without a break.
Some of the highlights was being the very last competitor onto the stage at the 1976 Eisteddfod at Menai Bridge - a festival equally noteable for the way traffic kept moving despite just one road bridge over the Menai Strait at that stage. The agricultural smells at the 1981 Eisteddfod at Newcastle Emlyn; the thrill of a group of children winning a science award at Cardiff and the 8,000 strong crowd at Nantlle Vale's football ground for a match between the fictional villages of Cwmderi and Bryn Coch. The northerners won 4-3 with a Wali Thomas penalty. I doubt whether there has been a bigger crowd at any match since in the entire region.
Recent highlights include the festival staged at the Anglesey Showground where the press where housed in an area normally used to store pigs and the performance of Les Miserables at the Wales Millennium Centre.
