Quite easy really, Ruth. We run both a weekly folk club and an annual folk festival. The local council has supported both with direct funding. North West Arts as was (now given the unfortunate name 'Arts About North West by some wag at a marketing company!) have given us funding for the folk festival. As we use lots of the folk festival artists at the club as well it is possible by clever dealing with the artists concerened to subsidise folk club artists with festival funding from the Arts council.

The best we have ever done was around 5 years ago when we received around £2000, enabling us to book, amongst others, an African Storyteller and Ukrainian dancers as part of the festival as well as getting 'deals' from major artists to do both the festival and the club. Even outside that we have been given the opportunity to apply for funding for the weekly club as part of a small club incentive some time ago. It was aimed mainly at Jazz clubs but was equaly applicable to any music club with small audiences. We did not apply in this instance because we were advised we would have a better chance of receiving our regular festival grant.

It is very important to understand that you need to apply for something that you cannot normaly achieve without funding AND that the funding is being used for the benefit of both the local community and the art form concerned. Hope this helps and if you need any further help or advice please feel free to PM me.

Cheers

D.