There has only been one passing mention of room acoustics so far, yet I believe that it is a major factor that can make one venue work and another fail. Sometimes it's not even the room itself, but the way it's been set out. There have several times when I've had a gig, that I've insisted on singing from a different part of the room and the difference has been enormous. In fact Linda and I will be doing exactly that on this Thursday night.

Why do so many clubs insist upon putting the performer at one end of a long room ? The volume of sound diminishes in proportion to the sqare of the distance from it's source (inverse square law). It therefor makes sense to try and get as much of your audience as possible in a band roughly the same distance from the performer as possible ie a semicircle around the midpoint of he longest side. That way your audience will feel (and actually be) closer to the performer and chorus singing will also be easier too.