True enough!

A folk club audience is likely to be made of regular attendees - Having said that, I've spent loads on seeing Norma Waterson and then not been out for weeks afterwards. In my youthful days of going to see "bands" it was the same - I'd save up for ages to go and see whatever dreary goth combo I was into at the time and then not go out again for ages. However, among my peer group there was always someone who had just got hot tickets to go and see something. My point being, lets say a venue can seat 100 people - In commercial terms, it doesn't actually matter whether that's the same 100 people who came last week or not.

Now, it's true that "folk music" doesn't have the same media support as acts such as Robbie Williams, but there IS media interest. We could get into serious thread creep about whether the current media situation is sufficiently effective/particuarly desirable, but we do have Radio coverage on BBC2, BBC3, internet radio, TV coverage on BBC4, press companies like smooth operations etc. Even I've been on Radio 3 a bit (does that make me validated?! lol)

There is also starting to be a deal of crossover into mainstream music with your James Blunts on the one side and your Seth Lakemans (or is it Lakemen?) on the other.

People DO want to know, so what can WE do on a grass roots level?

Villan, I never meant to suggest that you "should" want to run Faldingworth for commercial gain, I was just suggesting that it would be nice to be able to _IF_ you wanted! ie, get to the point where audience attendance was so great that you could phone the club for tickets only to be told - sorry - sold out three months ago etc. It's a nice club and I'd love to see it stuffed to capacity. Didn't mean to offend.

I think it's all to do with attitude - When was the last time any of us said to someone - "you've got to come to such and such a gig - It's folk music, you'll love it - really excellent etc etc". Maybe we need a more Evangelical approach?

Am guilty of thread creep myself now. and ranting. sorry.
Cheers
Jon