>> The organiser of one of our local folk clubs, rounding off the night after a great performance from a well-known English singer and sqeeezebox player, exhorted the audience to keep coming to the club and buying raffle tickets "...so we can afford someone even better!"

Sounds familiar - wasn't my gig was it??

One of the things Jeff Davis noticed on his recent tour (actually he's noticed it on every visit) was the apparent lack of advance research by MCs at both festivals and folk clubs (though not at ALL of them) so that they'd have something useful to say about the guest they were introducing. Certain MCs gave no indication of what kind of music the audience was about to hear, what the credentials of the performer were, and some didn't even bother to explain that Jeff was from America. It really does make a difference to the performer's task if there is some sense of eager anticipation in the room before they step onto the stage. There's probably been a previous thread on lousy perofrmer introductions, but I remember one from about three years ago where I was introduced with "And now, Brian Peters..... Brian, I've not seen you around for a while, thought you'd packed it in!" And that was it.

All Capt Birdseye's points are good, too.