Naemanson,

I have had good luck with art centers. I buy a mailing list from the Southern Arts Federation, then send promos to arts centers and museums which look promising to me. My stuff, like Rick's, is pretty traditional; Arts centers might not go for singer-songwriter concerts, but they seem to like a thematic approach. For example, they would like a concert on seafaring songs, or railroad songs, or War Between the States songs, as they can mount a show of art pieces based on this theme, and then use the concert to draw folks to the show. They like also to feature their state-- i.e. 'Traditional Music of Maryland,' and this sort of thing would work well for using musicians from within a relatively small radius. They like also to use story-tellers and readings by local or regional writers in conjunction with musical performances.