Magpie, in the pub type situations (I only really know folk club and instrumental jam sessions) round here, I have always been strongly in favour of finding a venue that offers a separate room open to anybody to come into and join in or listen.

Several years ago, on one of the rare occasions that I was the compere at a local folk club, we had trouble with a very noisy group of 4 people sitting at the front and politely talking to them did not make any difference. If I spoke to a male member, it was "don't blame us it's the women" and I knew that with their attidudes if I had of spoken to one of the women, I would have been seen to have been picking on women by them".

They were ruining the night for everybody and I had to do something so over the microphone, I pointed out that I would have them ejected if necessary, there were 2 bars, one for talking and one for listening but there was no need for things to go that far and asked them to be reasonable about things and that if they wanted to stay in this particuar room, that they should be considerate to the performers and those that wanted to listen.

I was actually worried doing this but to my surprise, after I had finised my little speach,I got a "standing ovation" from the rest of the audience (and we were full that night) and although one of the women pointed at me and shouted out "I'm going to F'ing kill you" they stormed out of the pub and were never seen again.

Believe it or not, this night actually ended up as being one of the best singers (no guest) nights that the club ever.

Jon