Oh behalf of The Unthanks, I'd like to thank 'Arthur itis' for drawing this matter to our attention, and giving us the opportunity to see if we can do something about it, and I would like firstly to address the original author of this thread directly. Unfortunately, the only way I can do that is through this board.

Steve, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I have spoken directly with Exeter Phoenix today. It is true that they have an allocation for wheelchair users, and a number of seats for those unable to stand for whatever reason. The number of seats depends on the number of wheelchair users - ie. if there are no wheelchair users, there are 18 seats, but the more wheelchair users, the more seats they remove to make space. They also liaise personally with wheelchair users to ask whether they would prefer to be in this allocated space (raised at that back, like a balcony, accessed with an elevator) or right down the front where they are given and welcome to have front row access amongst the standers. The limited seating available is given out on a first come first served basis, but there is also some subjectivity to the way in which it is granted. Box office staff are encouraged to make sure that they don't give the seating away willy-nilly, in case the next caller has physical ailments that entirely prohibit them from standing. This assessment is also subject to the point at which the enquiry is made, ie. if there is only 3 days to go and there is still 80% of the seating available, they are more likely to grant seating than they are if there is a month to go and only 20% available. Such a system is clearly open to interpretation, which is a good thing (rules can be flexible to common sense and human judgement) and a bad thing (one interpreter of the rules might be more aggressive or relaxed than another!).

I have spoken with the centre's director, and he has promised to alert box office staff to your enquiry Steve, so that if you call again, they can assess your enquiry again. As we don't have contact details for you, that's as much as we can do. The director's personal opinion at this point? - with you having some physical difficulties and your companions being in their sixties, he felt that you should be granted the 3 tickets you require, based on a combination of your needs and the fact that the majority of the seating is still available.. in other words, you have no cause to feel that you are taking up the last of the allocated seating, to the detriment of someone with greater needs, as was one of your concerns.

This I hope, addresses your concerns, but perhaps not the wider issue of standing gigs, and the resulting scarcity of provision for those who want or need to sit. Firstly, I don't think we've ever done a show where there hasn't been some sort of provision for seating. But regardless, the decision to do standing gigs is never a money making consideration. Sure, it may be a decision based on providing more tickets for people to see us, but that's not a financial move, it's a move to make sure that the amount of people that want to come and see us in a given town are not disappointed! Off the top of my head, I can think of two venues - Exeter Phoenix and Norwich Arts Centre - that we now do mainly standing, when once we used to play those venues fully seated. The reason is partly because there aren't suitable larger venues in those towns, and even if there is, it is partly because we value the intimacy of small venues, and try and find ways of resisting the move to larger, less personal venues. Sometimes the only way to do that without disappointing fans with a show that is sold out before they know it, is to go for standing downstairs. The decision to hold on to a smaller venue rather than moving on to a larger one is entirely with our audience in mind, from the point of view of intimacy, communication, sound quality, atmosphere. We are also in the business of trying to honour the little guys who supported us from the start, as opposed to moving on to a bigger venue without them. In some cases, that results in us playing a venue on consecutive nights, so that we can meet demand without increasing the venue size. When that happens, we incur twice the overheads by playing a venue twice, instead of moving to a venue that would only incur the costs of playing one night. Sometimes it involves us staying loyal to a small promoter, rather than accepting the advances of bigger fish. Furthermore, we have found that our standing shows have electric atmospheres, that the audience is much more responsive, and because people end up much closer to the stage, the connection we get with the whites of peoples
eyes is invaluable, in terms of communication, and breaking down the barrier between stage and audience, between artist and viewer.

We enjoy playing in churches, theatres, folk clubs, concert halls, sticky standing indie clubs, folk festivals, mainstream festivals and we enjoy the challenge of thriving in all of them, and I make no apologies for it, because the reason we do so is to please and attract people from as many different demographics as possible. For example, in Leeds, mostly we play at Howard Assembly Rooms, which is a beautiful seated venue belonging to Opera North. The average age of our audience there is probably about 50. But last time we played Leeds, we played the Brudnell Social Club, which is a standing rock venue, and the audience was completely different. The purpose of playing the latter venue is to develop new and younger audiences for folk music. The only way to do that is to go to them - to play where they go, where they relate to. But we're not on a single mission. The next Leeds show is back at the stately Howard Assembly Rooms, where we risk alienating (not to mention out-pricing) our younger audience, just as we risk alienating our older audience by playing Brudnell Social Club. We do this because we are philanthropists, interested in preaching to the unconverted. It is not that we are more interested in one audience more than another. It is more that we are prepared to do as much as we can to introduce folk music to as many music lovers as possible. We are no less interested in playing to the old than we are the young. And even if we were less interested in 'folkies' and the folk world than in more mainstream worlds, how on earth could we hope to distinguish a 60 year old folkie from a 60 year old into everything from Elvis Presley to Laura Marling to Rage Against the Machine?! The point there is, other types of music have older fans too.

I agree completely that some venues don't try hard enough with their access, and it is something we take seriously. It seems to me however that Exeter Phoenix take it very seriously, and have a page dedicated to it on their website. In my own personal opinion, there are very few great venues left, and we frequently feel that whatever option we take, it is more a lesser evil than a great option. Please bear in mind also however, that while I have been manager, agent, label, producer, pianist and tour manager for a long time, I am no longer our agent and not always in full knowledge or control of our touring plans. We work very hard, but we have gone past the point at which we have time to do everything ourselves. The reason we have tried to deal directly and personally with every facet of the music industry for so long (apart from the cold fact that we can't afford professionals to do it for us) is precisely so that we have as much control over our music and our audience's experience as possible, guarding against the prospect of success equaling the delegation of decisions to people who may not be as sensitive to our wishes and concerns. 'Arthur Itis', who brought this matter to my attention, last saw us performing at a Primary School in Lincs. Had we been looked after by a big London agency, this school's enquiry would never even have reached our ears for consideration, and while we have to say all the time to enquiries, the headmaster in the instance struck me as being on quite a remarkable quest with what he was trying to do with music and his semi-rural community. The personal contact allow me to assess his case on merit, not on money, or cool, or our aims and objectives. So, we came of stage at the ultra cooling, all standing festival Crossing Borders in Holland, jumped on a plane and with practically no sleep at all and another show a long way away the next night, we went to play at the primary school, first in the afternoon for the kids, and then again in the evening, after we'd done some workshops too, and then we have the pleasure of staying with the headmaster, his lovely wife and children, and what a great night we had.

In case anyone thinks this statement of independence is hypocritical given our licensing deal to EMI, our deal with them is one which offers them no artistic interference at all, nor do they seek it. Their impact on our career is purely a question of using their marketing and distribution infrastructure to reach as many people with our music as possible. It is up to every individual to decide what they listen to. When you listen to ours, it is from us, but it may have been brought to your attention in a way that we alone could have reached you alone, because we do not have the manpower, expertise or finance.

Do not think for a second that our touring motives our financial. If they were, we wouldn't be putting out a 10 piece band that is not financially sustainable in the size of venues we are playing! Despite our perceived success, the core members of The Unthanks, including myself, still haven't made it into five figures, in terms of personal annual earnings. We'd probably be better off on the social! And if our touring motives were financial, our shows would consist purely of playing in seated, comfortable, well facilitated arts centres and theatres. That's because such venues (very generally speaking) have a higher average audience age and a higher socio-economic audience group. Put in brutal terms, we could quite easily play cosy provincial arts centres and theatres for the rest of our days, playing to audiences with higher disposable income, with more money to spend on CDs and higher ticket prices. And at these shows, the backstage facilities are better, we're well treated, well fed, the shows finish earlier and we get a lot more rest. The majority of standing shows we do are aimed at cultivating new and younger audiences for folk music, and it has been a long and expensive investment, playing in large city centres, in under-equipped venues with sticky carpets and that charge you a hire fee to play there. If there is any part of our audience demographic that we are disappointed in, it is the young, not the old! Of course, I'm generalizing enormously now and exaggerating and being tongue in cheek to make a point, but the fact is, youngsters growing up now have so many different types of leisure options available to them, that music does not occupy the same places in youth culture as it once did, let alone folk music. So we're determined to try twice as hard to make sure we are doing our bit to keep this music alive amongst new generations, as well as been heartily glad and appreciative of every single person who chooses to spend their hard earned cash on coming to see us, regardless of generation or musical persuasion. I myself am a grumpy old man in the making, and both Rachel and I spend the majority of our little free time either with our ancient parents and our toddler nephews, rather than on our own generation, and at 37 and 33 respectively, we don't regard ourselves as young anyway! And when our UK tour starts in March, Rachel will be nearly 7 months pregnant, and will most likely have her own chair on stage!!!

Please note that this is a statement and not an attempt to enter into conversation. Such forums ought to be healthy places for democratic discussion and debate, but are frequently places to make vicious, insulting, personal remarks behind anonymous aliases, and to assert wildly inaccurate information or ill-informed prejudice that quickly adopts the impression of public opinion, as if the subjects you insult do not have ears, feelings, insecurities, families. That is why you will never find an Unthank reading or contributing to these pages, and why I regret having to make this statement through this channel. The initial author and many of the contributors have made interesting and welcome debate, but others are rude in a way I suspect they would never dare to be in person, yet it is taken no less personally by us. Making and releasing art makes an artist subject to criticism but not to abuse and slander, nor does making art, however successfully, give the artist any thicker skin than the next person.

Nevertheless, anyone who has concerns or problems of any kind in relation to being able to see our shows is welcome to approach us directly.
While I write as manager as well as member of The Unthanks, I do not necessarily represent the views of all members of The Unthanks.
Adrian McNally
The Unthanks.