I don't run a club, but at a workshop by the best businesswoman I know in folk music (she books/agents/promotes for her band and also organizes several successful festivals a year), I learned what I am sure most performers know. And that is-- Performers and agents understand that there are venues they can hold up for high fees, and venues that will pay what they can.

A performer who can fill his/her schedule with only the former venues doesn't have to negotiate. I have yet to meet one! The rest of the working world of folk musicians understands that at best they will have a mix of opportunities, and that if they want to work fulltime in music, they bear the burden of filling their schedule with whatever they can get at the best terms they can negotiate.

The VENUES are in charge of those opportunities. YOU are the person that has to be courted, the person whose requirements and fee policies will have to be followed. If a given performer doesn't see your venue and your policies as a viable opportunity, they are free to look elsewhere.

If you balance this with what your audience is able and willing to pay-- ASK them from time to time if they want you to book people who will cost dearly, and how they will help meet the fee-- then you will be able to keep a schedule and an audience, and continue to be in a position to opportunities to performers.

~Susan