"In such institutions, individuals can exploit their position to promote artists (or whole genres of music) for which there is relatively little demand, while ignoring others which are more popular with the general public."

I'm not sure where the conspiracy is...if we didn't do that, what do you think the ratio of folk would be that gets a look-in at our venues? Or jazz? Or other minority music genres? Or more challenging theatre?

If state-subsidised venues weren't trying to redress the balance and were programming purely on populist lines, it wouldn't even be the more popular folk artists we'd fill our brochures with. It'd be Jethro, Ken Dodd, Chubby Brown, and tribute bands. Oh, and touring musicals. I could pack my venue every night with a programme like that. Happily, though, our objectives extend beyond bums on seats.

It's the sucess of the populist stuff, by the way, that lets us then look around and say, "Okay, I can now afford to take a few risks. Let's see which interesting folk/jazz/roots/blues bands are around that I might be able to get away with."

With the best will in the world, small to mid-scale gigs hardly pay for themselves, by the time you factor in staffing and additional costs like PA. But we do them because it's important to be presenting a diversity of cultural product, and to be giving opportunities to artists whose profile would benefit from a date at a venue like ours.